


Whisper In My Ear

by unknowableroom_archivist



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Drama
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-06-08
Updated: 2007-01-22
Packaged: 2019-01-19 06:36:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 30
Words: 45,222
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12405012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unknowableroom_archivist/pseuds/unknowableroom_archivist
Summary: Pre-DH. A person is a complex being. Torn, mended, covered. Memories, lovers, death. Explore what truly makes a human being human and see how the slightest thing can mould a person forever.//Complete.  [Hourglass Winner]





	1. Blood

**Author's Note:**

> Note from ChristyCorr, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [Unknowable Room](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Unknowable_Room), a Harry Potter archive active from 2005-2016. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project after May 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [Unknowable Room collection profile](http://www.archiveofourown.org/collections/unknowableroom).

**Blood.**

I was sitting in the kitchen. It was April. Spring was beginning to creep into our lives, subtly, hidden. I was trying to eat a banana, but it was gradually being covered with red blood spots, dripping oh so slowly. Every time I reached for a piece of fruit, the soft, pastel yellow became tainted until there was no more yellow and no more banana and a sudden rush of tears came down my face. My cries summoned my mother who cut me a new banana and bandaged Petunia’s cut and smiled and told us what to do next time and made it all OK.

She always made it all OK.

**Blood.**

I was cutting beef. I don’t remember why. Slicing and dicing, the smell of cold meat entering my subconscious. I brought the knife down with perfect accuracy and squirted myself in the face with cow’s blood. I caught sight of myself in the dark windows. My face was stained crimson, the thick red sap dripping onto my clothes. With my bloodstained hands, I looked like Lady Macbeth. The image burned into my mind.

Dumbledore told us we needed to go into hiding. Voldemort was coming, James and I moved ever closer to death. As I held Harry in my arms I saw the blood dripping from my hands, just like that night. I looked into his trusting eyes as they grew heavy and finally closed. I turned to James. _I’ve killed him_ rests unspoken on my lips.

**Blood.**

‘Lily Evans.’ I greeted my potions partner.

‘Sirius Black.’ The messy-haired boy gave a malicious giggle and turned to his friends. Boyish laughter echoed around the dungeon. I felt that cold rush of irritation. I was often told I was hot tempered, but I had to disagree. I was cold tempered. Whenever something roused my temper I grew cold, stiff.

‘Come, come. Mr Black, Miss Evans, is it? You haven’t even started. Miss Young and Mr Lupin have almost finished their’s! This really isn’t good enough!’

This Black kid was really pissing me off now. He turned to his friend with equally messy black hair, burst out laughing and gave me a pitying look that said very clearly, _You’re just not cool enough._

I swallowed my frustration and looked at the instructions on the board. Right. Frog spleens and locusts. I put a healthy measure of each into a bowl and starting crushing them with a pestle, as the instructions said, carefully averting my eyes from Black. I was doing the patented Lily Evans Holier Than Thou and it sure as hell made me feel better. But suddenly it was all ruined.

I felt something wet splash all over my face. I caught sight of myself in the cauldren. It was a deep purplish liquid. I looked at Black who was pissing himself with his messy-haired mate, still holding the frog spleen with whose blood he’d squirted me. I glared at them. Black’s mate stuck out his hand.

‘James Potter. Nice to meet you.’ 

**Blood.**

I’ve never been in such agony. My stomach felt like it was about to rip open. My spine felt like it was going to give up the ghost. I was screaming, just about ready to die. James looked at my face, contorted with pain and asked if there was anything he could do. I looked at him, wondering if he was kidding.

‘Get it out.’ I said coldly. He went white and wisely stayed quiet.

And as if it had never been, the pain stopped. I sighed, pure relief. James got me settled on a bed and went to get me a cup of coffee. He hardly reached the door before the pain came again, worse than the last time. He ran back to the bed, held my hand and told me to breathe. Why thank you James, love. I knew there was something I was forgetting. I glared at him and, with a look of relief on his face he went to get me that cup of coffee.

And suddenly the pain came again and it was worse, so much worse and someone told me to push and I pushed and someone told me to push harder and I tried but I couldn’t and then they told me it was OK and I tried again and I pushed with all my might and suddenly there was a rush of blood, hot and slippery and I lay back and I’d never been so tired in all my life.

But the moment I’d lain back I had to sit up again. And just for a moment, I resented it. And then James handed me the baby and the thought disappeared from my mind. I smiled and wiped a spot of blood from the cheek of my child. I looked at James. Our child.

**Blood.**

I was sitting in a café in Hogsmeade. It was seventh year, near Christmas. I sipped a cappuccino opposite James Potter. He was staring at me silently, sipping eggnog. I put my hand out on the table, palm up. I expected him to take it. Instead he put his next to mine, palm up. He looked at me.

‘Look at that.’

‘What?’ 

‘Your veins. My veins. Practically identical.’

‘What do you mean?’

He smiled wryly, but his eyes remained serious. ‘I mean, Voldemort. Favoring so-called ‘pure-bloods’. Does my blood look purer to you?’

I studied the greenish lines under our skin. ‘Not at all.’

**Blood.**

‘Tunia! Tunia! Why do I have to have red hair?’

‘Don’t call me Tunia. Because it’s in your blood. Your genes. We learnt it in Science.’

Now that Petunia went to High School we heard a lot about Science.

‘What’s wrong with my blood?’

Petunia pointed to my heart. ‘Bad blood,’ she said simply.

‘Huh?’ I was confused.

‘Bad blood,’ she repeated. ‘From your dad. He’s a bad man. Mum said.’

I looked down at my chest, chewing on this. I finally reached a conclusion. ‘So. How do I get rid of it? I don’t like red hair.’

Petunia’s face smiled an evil smile that scared me. She reached for my wrist and drew a line down it with her nail. ’Cut along here with a knife. That’ll get rid of the blood.’ She tossed her head and walked off. 

I looked down at my chest, at my wrist and at Petunia’s back. Bad blood.

**Blood.**

Please review. It will make me smile. I'm still working on chapter two, but it should be up some time next week - I'm examming this week ^.^


	2. Kisses

**Kisses.**

Heavy breathing, huge boy-hands pushing at her body, a red blush spread across her face. Petunia never knew I saw her first kiss.

He was the kid who worked down the launderette. I’d seen him every Saturday when I was younger. Nine years we’d been going to that launderette. I’d watched him grow from a scabby seven-year-old who sat in the corner playing GameBoy and stuck his tongue out at me to a tall, skinny sixteen-year-old with spiky hair that he’d dyed blond. But I hadn’t been to the launderette recently. Petunia had started moaning about how she was too old to be seen out with her kid sister. Only now had I realized the truth.

I sat for almost ten minutes, watching them share saliva before I went in and lay on my bed and thought about the time when I’d want some boy’s lips on mine. I wondered if I ever would.

**Kisses.**

It was obsessive. It was compulsive. I couldn’t stop planting kisses all over him. On his cheeks, his nose, his eyelids. I couldn’t believe how lucky I was to have him and I just kept kissing him – over and over again.

‘Lily!’ James’ voice had a laugh in it. ‘Stop putting your saliva all over my son. He’ll end up a total softie.’

I laughed too. Giddy, crazy, lucky laughter. I dropped another kiss on Harry’s nose and thrilled in his tiny giggle. I picked him up and cuddled him close. Suddenly, I felt the oddest sensation – like the gentlest tickle you could ever imagine. Harry had kissed me.

**Kisses.**

Kisses in the dark, shared confusion, exciting fumbling and desperation. Kisses in the light, where the world is turning around you and yet all you can see is a wide expanse of skin and hair and maybe a fallen eyelash. Kisses in public, a proud declaration of love, or of lust. Kisses in secret, when love is so pure that it isn’t for anyone else to know about. 

It’s strange what a kiss can do to you. How sharing spit with a total stranger can make your stomach turn inside out. How dancing your tongue inside someone’s mouth can evoke emotions that you’d never even imagined. How perfectly sensible young women will dream lazily about boys with scruffy hair and terrible dress sense if they can do enough things with their tongue and lips and mouth. That amazing sense when you feel that heat in your mouth and you know that the two of you are sharing breath and sharing heartbeats and sharing life. 

It’s strange what a kiss can do to you.

**Kisses.**

‘Petunia?’

‘What?’ I hated it when she snapped. Usually I would’ve shut up right then. But this was important. I had to find out right NOW.

‘Where did I come from?’

‘Mummy’s tummy.’ She replied promptly and glibly.

‘How did I get there?’

This caused her more problems. Her face twisted round until she finally had the answer. ‘Mummy and your daddy kissed and you got there.’

‘So if I kiss Mummy she’ll have another baby?’

The superior look returned to Petunia’s face. ‘Of course not, IDIOT. It has to be a boy. She has to kiss a boy. And it’s a special kind of kiss.’

‘What kind of kiss?’

‘That’s a secret. Now leave me alone.’

**Kisses.**

It was summer and autumn all at once. It was evening and the sun was casting long shadows on the patio where I was. The leaves on the trees were beginning to turn and there was definitely a touch of autumn in the summer breeze. I love it when the seasons change and the world says goodbye and hello all at once and you can just watch it happen.

I was sitting on my mother’s lap with my head resting on her chest. The radio was playing softly. She smelt of cigarettes and perfume, with a bit of Coca-Cola mixed in. I breathed her in, absorbing her. My eyes drew heavy and I felt her kiss the top of my head.

‘Lily! Wake up, my love. You’ve got to leave for Hogwarts in an hour.’

**Kisses.**

I missed meaningless kisses. When you’re fourteen kissing is no big deal, the most you may be required to do is let him stick his tongue in your mouth. At seventeen it was a lot more complicated. There were rules. If he kissed you sweetly you were required to pay him back, as teenagers tended to euphemistically put it. 

I missed being able to kiss someone behind the Greenhouses and that be it. I hated the emotions attached to it, the obligations. I liked kissing, I wanted to do kissing. But kissing was no fun if you know that he was waiting for more, that kissing was simply a forerunner and he was mentally counting his condoms. Sometimes even his flavoured condoms. Kissing was no longer an activity, it was a means to an end. I missed the days when kissing felt romantic and passionate. 

I missed the days when a guy kissed you and you felt special, chosen, when you felt attractive. The first time I was kissed it was a self-esteem boost – I was pretty enough that someone wanted to kiss me. But at seventeen it was almost a self-esteem drop – did I look like a slag? 

But one day James Potter found me crying in the grounds and kissed me like that was all he wanted. And I fell in love.

**Kisses.**

This is the rewrite of Kisses. When I first wrote it, I was a lot younger, I was a lot less mature and my writing style reflected this. And for months I’ve felt guilty because I thought it brought down the mood of the entire story, which I didn’t like. So I hope you like this. Reviews are love.

Angelxx 


	3. Mirrors

**Mirrors.**

‘What on earth do you think you’re doing?’

I jumped up, shocked. ‘Mum?’

James’ face creased in a stern frown. He looked from my face to my hand and back again. He plucked the packet from my fingers. He pointed to one of the labels on it and read aloud. ‘Smoking when pregnant harms your baby.’ I bit my lip.

‘Sorry.’ I said, sheepishly.

He gave me one last look. ‘I have to go. Love you.’ A kiss on the cheek and he was gone.

I automatically reached for my bag to get a cigarette. I caught sight of the label again and sighed, frustration and anger and fear and want overflowing within me. I took out the four packets in there and threw them all in the bin. But a moment later I was leaning over the bin, grabbing at them frantically. I caught sight of my reflection in the big mirror on the kitchen wall. I looked like some crazed druggie. My face was contorted, my eyes rabid. Obsessive selfishness. I stood and held a cigarette up. All this tension, I thought, for a little white stick. I looked down at the bin, put my hand on my stomach and clenched my fist. In one fluid movement I knocked an old bottle of vodka into the bin and thrown in my lighter. Flames rose at once from the depths of the bin and I sat and smiled as I smelt my cigarettes burning away.

Again I caught sight of myself in the mirror. One step at a time, I said aloud to my reflection.

**Mirrors.**

_A broken mirror is worth seven years bad luck._

I was eight. I was alone in the house, sitting in my sister’s room, playing with her make up. I was admiring green eye shadow, blissfully unaware that it clashed with my eyes, when suddenly, how I do not know, I dropped it. Petunia’s mirror, that is. I dropped it onto her dressing table and it smashed into one thousand pieces. Slowly, I put down the make up, walked out of the room and sat on the carpet in the hall. I held a single piece of mirror in my hand. It was jagged, scratched, it hardly reflected at all. But it glinted when it hit the light and it reminded me of a good person who had been cursed – like the Prince in Beauty and the Beast. Pure, somewhat tainted, but with the ability to rise again. 

Petunia came home. I got my seven years bad luck.

**Mirrors.**

Phoebe never cried. She was always the kind who took it all on the chin and then walked to the dormitory and sat on her bed, rocking slightly, silent and still. But that afternoon, she wept buckets. I’d never seen so many scrunched up tissues on one bed as I did that afternoon.

And it was all on account of lipstick. Lipstick and eyeliner.

‘Lily you can’t!’ she wept wretchedly. ’You just…just can’t. I won’t let you.’ She made a feeble attempt to remove the cleansing wipe from my hand, but soon fell back onto her bed, tired and damp and with a headache from too much crying. She sobbed some more. ’Please Lily. It’s like the last connection to Hogwarts. And when it’s gone, we have to go and I have to go out into the world and…and…and I’m scared.’ Her heart-rending cries hurt me, but as Head Girl I had to make sure all dormitories were cleaned out at the end of the year.

I walked over to the mirror and wiped off seven years of messages written by Phoebe Dancer, Lily Evans and Jessica Turner. Seven years of jokes and laughter and friendship. Seven years, just smeared away as if they were nothing but lipstick. Lipstick and eyeliner.

**Mirrors.**

When I was five we got a kitten. A tiny ball of dark brown fur called Alice with big blue eyes and a tendency to lick. I loved her. She was cute and small and playful and she became my best friend. I didn’t need other little girls to play with. I had Alice.

Then one day I placed her on Petunia’s dressing table while I was playing with lipstick. She caught sight of her reflection in the mirror. She put up her paw, licked the mirror, headbutted it. Then she sat down in front of it and stared at her own reflection. Just stared. And when I tried to pull her away she turned on my with a hatred in her periwinkle eyes that I’d never seen. I left her. And still, still she stared. She wouldn’t move for her food, she wouldn’t sleep. She hardly blinked. This kitten was absolutely and utterly transfixed.

Two days later I got home from school. I ran into Petunia’s room and today there was no traditional kitten on the dressing table, no Alice in the mirror. I turned round and saw my mother holding a rabbit.

‘This is Grace, Lily.’

I looked into her eyes. ‘Where’s Alice?’

She looked at me with tears in her eyes. 

‘Alice went…Alice went into the mirror.’

**Mirrors.**

The summer after seventh year, James and I stayed in our family’s summerhouse in Cornwall. It was like a dream. We laughed and ate ice cream and walked on the beach and shared moments and kisses and lazy afternoons that stayed with me my whole life.

And, one time, we went to the fair. It was in the village nearby. We hadn’t even planned to go, we’d just walked down to get a beer. But we saw it and it looked like fun and hell, we had nothing better to do. It was actually a pretty good fair. There were all those old fashioned games like coconut shies and hoopla that one only finds in places like Cornwall, because the rest of the world is moving on, terrified of the fact that it’s less than 30 years to a new millennium and the 21st century and they’re still not truly sure what a PC is. This fascinated me about the wizarding world. For my first few weeks at Hogwarts, I was astonished that none of the pure bloods knew words like ‘microwave’, ‘TV’ or ‘sputnik’. I found it so sublime that, with all their magic and knowledge, wizards insisted, nay prided themselves, on remaining one hundred years behind Muggles. For these people to live in the same time, country, often the same city as me and still write letters instead of using the phone took my breath away.

We went into the Mirror Maze. James loved it, absolutely loved it. It was one of those ones where all the mirrors twist you, make you look really fat or long and skinny or turn you upside down or something. He held me hand as we walked through, his head turning this way and that like a child at a tennis match. Suddenly he turned to me and looked confused.

‘I thought it was a Muggle-only place.’

This surprised me no end. I replied, confused: ‘It is.’

He shook his head. ’Nuh-uh. They must’ve transfigured the mirrors to make the people look weird. This is magic.’

Then it was my turn to shake my head. ‘Nope. Not magic.’

He looked around again. ‘Then what?’

I contemplated trying to explain Physics and convex and concave to him and laughed inwardly. I just looked at him. ‘You underestimate Muggles. They don’t need magic. It’s better for them not to have it. Look at what it does to wizards. I bet if someone tried to get rid of Voldemort using a Muggle method as opposed to a wizard one, they’d succeed. Wizards rely too much on magic.’ 

One last time, he looked round at the mirrors before saying, completely seriously. ‘If Muggles can do this, Muggles can do anything.’ I took his hand and led him out of the Mirror Maze. It wasn’t good for him.

**Mirrors.**

I know this took ages for me to get up and it’s not even as long as the others, but I think I like it better. But that’s just me. Reviews? I don’t know how long this is going to be, I’ve got a lot of ideas but I don’t know how many will ever get onto the page…screen…whatever. Reviews help this process. A lot. Even flames. Thank you. 


	4. Chances

**Chances.**

‘Take a chance, Tunia.’

‘Have a go, Tunia.’

‘Don’t be scared, Tunia.’

‘Stay by me, Lily.’

‘Be more careful, Lily.’

‘Play safe, Lily.’

I was the daredevil, the one who stood up on the swings and went down the slide backwards and talked to strangers. When we left the house, I was the one out on the road while Petunia waited passively for our Mother’s hand. The time that we went rock climbing I was at the top as Petunia made her conscientious, careful first steps. Petunia feared the unknown, Petunia feared fear. I loved the feeling when every heartbeat threatens to burst out of your chest and every breath is short and accompanied by a dry throat and trouble breathing. Fear can hold you back or can be the driving force behind everything you do and Petunia and I were everything that is different and this time she got the short straw and she never truly forgave me for that.

**Chances.**

I looked at James. James looked at me. I grabbed his hand and we ran all the way through Hogsmeade right to the end of the road up into the hills and we fell down on the grass and he kissed me and I kissed him and limbs and clothes and lips were everywhere and I couldn’t tell where I left off and James started and this, this was the life.

But suddenly it all changed. James’ hands were going everywhere and it wasn’t comforting it was strange and uncomfortable and I hated the sensation. It was too slick, too sleazy. I wanted the loving feeling back. His hands were cold now, bony and rigid. I tensed up. James’ lay atop me and looked into my eyes.

‘I love you.’

His hands cupped my face and they were warm again.

‘I love you too.’ I replied, because that’s what I was supposed to say.

‘Then do this for me. I love you Lily. I’d do anything for you, run any race, take any chance. Will you do this for me?’

And of course, when your boyfriend has so carefully planned that little speech, you can’t exactly refuse. 

**Chances.**

I looked at the pregnancy test. An uncomfortable sense of deja-vu crept up on me. It had been in a bathroom just like this, about four years ago, that I’d stood and stared at a similar white stick, with a similar blue flush on one end. I closed my eyes and sat down on the edge of the bath.

‘Of course you can’t have a freaking baby! It’ll be like a witch or a ghoul or something, do you want to inflict that on a poor, defenceless society?! You’re sixteen Lily, what the hell is wrong with you?! God, I knew you were a freak but I never thought you were a slut too…’

Petunia’s voice rang in my ears, four years old and yet the words still hung around. I blushed at the memory of that episode. For weeks afterwards I’d walk down the corridor, wandering if people can tell – like a thirteen year old assuming everyone knows she’s got a period. Sometimes, I’d swear I could hear it – _That’s Lily Evans. She had an abortion. Evans had an abortion. Pregnant…Evans….abortion…Lily…_

I clenched my fist and put my other hand on my stomach. This time I wouldn’t give in. I’d grab the opportunity, the chance of a lifetime. It wouldn’t be like the other one. It wouldn’t be like Anna.

And with all the determination that got Lily Evans through six years of ‘EVANS! Go out with me!’ I strode into the kitchen and veritably shouted at James: ‘We’re having a baby.’

And, to give him his due, he managed to cough out a ‘Right’ before he fainted dead away.

**Chances.**

It was just on the cold side of cool, as we walked back home. Petunia was in her element, winding me up, irritating me. She always knew the right buttons to press to make me mad and tonight I was madder than mad. I thought I was going to spontaneously combust through anger. I can’t even remember why. But we were walking down the long road by the park with the little skinny silver birches that need canes to keep them upright. I walked on the right of the trees. She walked on the left. And suddenly, involuntarily, I pushed the tree with my shoulder as I passed it. It fell, right on Petunia’s back. I stood, stunned by my own strength, with one words coursing through my head. _Unnatural._

That was the first time it happened.

**Chances.**

We had to have career advice with McGonagall toward the end of Sixth Year. Although I’d read through the pamphlets conscientiously and Phoebe and Jess and I had had long discussions on the matter, I could still boast no clue as to what I wanted to do in the future. It still felt like Hogwarts would just…keep going. So I just told McGonagall that and she raised her eyebrows at me and said she was surprised to hear that.

‘So, Miss Evans. What kind of things would you look for in a career?’

You’d think, wouldn’t you, that a generally proactive girl like me would expect this question and think about it beforehand. But no, apparently not.

I swallowed, thinking, carefully choosing my words. ‘Um, I’d like to…help people.’

McGonagall nodded. I relaxed a little.

‘Yeah, I’d like to help people. And I’d like a job that played to my strengths. But I don’t want to work too hard and I want to enjoy myself. Oh, and I want to work with people.’ I added as an afterthought.

McGonagall looked down at the paper that the Quick-Quotes Quill had scribbled my words on. She scanned it surreptitiously and looked up.

‘Plays to your strengths, you said. What, Miss Evans do you believe are your strengths?’ I blushed. I couldn’t help it. It was just the way she asked me, as if she couldn’t believe that even I could believe I had strengths.

I stammered and stuttered my way through the list. ‘Well, I think…I thought…I…kind of think I’m quite good at Potions. And…um…I’m good at Charms…I think….I ….I don’t know.’ I was disappointed. One cruel comment and Lily Evans falls apart. What was that all about?

McGonagall looked down at me through her glasses and smiled slightly.

‘Miss Evans. I have your reports. I know that you are a talented Potion maker and your Charms are excellent. But you must understand, you have far greater strengths than that. You have good people skills. You keep your head under pressure. Mostly. [Here I concealed a snort of laughter] Miss Evans, think again about your career. You have so many chances for your future. Don’t waste them.’

**Chances.**

I know, I know. This one’s even shorter. Sorry. IOU one long chapter. But you can’t cash in that IOU if you don’t review. Haha, blackmail. 


	5. Tears

**Tears.**

His tears broke my fragile heart. Hearing his cries made me hurt physically and beg him to stop. James was stronger than I was. He could deal with it. He could hear them and leave him, I couldn’t.

I knew, I read all the newspapers and watched all those programs on TV, I knew. When a child cries it’s generally just a way of getting attention. But when Harry cried, with gut-wrenching, heart-stopping wails, it was more like he was begging for death. And all I could think was _No, kill me instead._ It very nearly did.

**Tears.**

Angry tears are so different from sad tears. Angry tears hurt. They sting your eyes and burn your cheeks. All that stuff they tell you in primary school about how tears cleanse and soothe the eye. Bullshit. These tears were killing me, my eyes and my heart. I didn’t care how sad and teenage angsty it was – all I wanted at that moment was death.

I couldn’t believe her. After the bloody fuss she’d kicked up when I’d given Jack Oddsfield a drunken blowjob when she’d had a crush on him, you’d think the little fucking hypocrite would have some fucking morals. But no, Phoebe Dancer needs no morals. Phoebe Dancer is above all that shit.

I heard the dormitory door open and footsteps enter. I listened as they crossed the room, got a drink of water, removed their shoes and came to rest on the other side of the drapes around my bed. The curtains twitched and I tensed up, expected to come face-to-face with the black-hearted whore herself. But, of course, it was just Jess. She sat opposite me on the bed and crossed her legs like a little girl.

‘Are you OK?’ She sounded terrified, like she thought I might explode. Jess had always been shy, until she was stoned. The picture of her and Sirius danced in front of my eyes, oh no, she wasn’t shy when she was stoned. The picture melded into Phoebe and James and a fresh crop of tears escaped and fled down my cheeks. I laughed very, very slightly and licked my lips out of reflex.

‘My tears taste funny, but yeah, I’m OK.’ I almost whispered.

And then, out of nowhere, she kissed me.

It was sweet and tasted of Butterbeer, the only thing she drank. It was warmer than kissing a boy and nice, in its own way. It reminded me of James, the way she just did it without thinking. _Her clichéd hands ran through my clichéd hair._ I remembered James, asking me out all those times. ‘Lily, you’re the only one’. He never said I was the only one he wanted, the only one he loved. Just ‘the only one’. _She pressed her lips harder to mine; I could feel the roughness where she’d burnt her tongue._ Of course now I realized it was none of those things. I had just been the only one he couldn’t have. _She licked the inside of my mouth with a well-practiced touch._ And now he’d had me, he didn’t need me. A few more tears fell and Jess stuck out her tongue and caught them, which brought my attention back to the matter at hand. The entire scene smacked of clichés and teenagers and boarding school and when I pulled away I was shaking slightly.

‘Yeah,’ she said, walking over to the door. ‘Your tears do taste funny.’ Maybe she wasn’t as shy as I’d thought.

**Tears.**

When I was about four I asked my mother what rain was. 

‘It’s God’s tears. Every time someone goes against Him God makes one more tear and every now and again they all come down in one go.’

The idea gripped me. God as a vulnerable being, one with emotions and sadness and happiness and hopes and fears. Suddenly lighting candles on Friday night, going to synagogue on a Saturday morning, eating Kosher – it all made sense. We were saving God. Saving God from eternal suffering at the hands of non-believers and wrongdoers. Saving God from eternal weeping. Even the story of Noah’s Ark made sense now.

Even years later, after I learnt the truth about rain and religion and I grew wiser as to the ways of the world, I still clung to my hope to save God. In Hogwarts, thrown into a world with no God and no religion, I almost cried for the other people. If it hadn’t been for my Judaism and my God and my purpose – to save Him – I don’t know how I would’ve survived. It was my comfort zone, my saving grace. A world with no God – it terrified me. The wizarding world was a world with no purpose. Even a world with God’s tears was better than that.

**Tears.**

‘I got into a fight.’ That was all he could say and I was so tempted to reply _Really? I’d never have guessed._ But he looked so wretched that all I could say was ‘Looks like you lost.’

There was a magnificent flapping of wings and Fawkes, having at last finished his fudge, landed on James’ shoulder and leant his great head onto the longest gash in his forearm. And all at once, I realized why phoenix tears are healing. That crimson head, with its glorious sparkle of gold and brilliant black tears glowed with wisdom and strength. The pearly tears that fell from those great eyes were cloudy and seemed to hold pictures inside them. It was hypnotizing, these tears held power stronger than anything I knew. I almost wanted James to leave; it was him who was bursting the tears that intoxicated me so. And suddenly, as soon as it had started, Fawkes’ eyes dimmed slightly and he flew back to his perch. I looked from James’ arm, to Fawkes and to Dumbledore, silent in the corner, who simply nodded and began the meeting.

All the way through that meeting I stared at Fawkes, never again just a bird to me.

**Tears.**

It was my seventh birthday party, long anticipated by both my sister and myself. My mother had promised me the most incredible, girly, pink party a six-going-on-seven year old girl could ask for. On the morning of the party, Petunia and I were banned from the dining room, and listening in at the keyhole, trying to peep through the crack in the door was almost as much fun as the party itself.

And come half past five, the door was ceremonially opened and anything I had dreamt of couldn’t come close to it. The whole room was set up as a beauty salon, complete with hair, make up and a nail bar. My friends and Petunia and I rushed in to have our nails painted pink and our lips smothered in pink and our hair dyed pink and it was glamorous and exciting and the best party ever and suddenly the phone rang and my mother rushed out to get it and it was the people who lived in my grandmother’s block of flats to say they were terribly sorry but that she was dead.

All my friends left after that. I sat on the stairs, howling, tears rolling down my face, dislodging my eye makeup and sticking strands of hair to my cheeks. I just couldn’t stop crying. Weeping for the party I should have had. And weeping for myself, such an awful person that my grandmother’s death has no effect on me. And the tears that night tasted bitter and sickly sweet.

**Tears.**

‘Lily, Petunia just called.’ My maid of honour came into my bedroom as I was just getting into my wedding dress. ‘She and Vernon…can’t make it.’

I knew what that meant. _Petunia refuses to attend your freak wedding._

I nodded silently and sat down on my bed, a couple of tears filling my eyes. A familiar feeling coursed through me. It was the same feeling I’d gone through on my first day at Hogwarts when I’d sat next to one Severus Snape in Charms. I’d introduced myself to him and stuck out my hand and he’d stared at it like it was curse and told me that he didn’t touch Mudbloods. I hadn’t even known what Mudblood meant, but the way he said it put me in mind of white kids back in London looking at that Keiran who lived round the corner and shouting ‘Nigger!’ when he passed. And of course, I was quite right. 

Some issues can’t be solved by tears. Some can’t even be solved by magic. Sometimes, I wonder if they can be solved by anything.

**Tears.**

This chapter is dedicated to plastic fruit. Sorry about the long wait. Please review. All love, Angel. 


	6. Courage

**Courage.**

That’s you. The one on the screen with the thin strawberry blonde curls. This was before they’d gotten thicker and redder. That’s you. You’re sitting on the floor. Look, you can touch your toes and put your foot in your mouth. That’s you. Every single little bit is you. You’re pushing off from the floor, trying to stand up. You fall back and try again, twice more, three times. You’re up. That’s you, standing up there. That’s you. A disembodied voice is speaking. _Go on, Lily,_ it says, _be brave._ And slowly, so slowly, you place one foot in front of the other. You fall over. You get up. That’s you. And slowly, you put your foot down again. And you stand there for a moment, marveling at your own balance. That’s you. And you do it again and you’re doing it, you did it. You were brave, you walked. That’s you, walking alone.That’s you. 

**Courage.**

Have you ever been surprised by shampoo? I have.

Shower gel, too.

It was my first night at Hogwarts. It had been a long journey; we were all taking showers. And it was the weirdest shower I’d ever taken. You stand in the cubicle and the water starts running, the temperature controlled – it would seem – by one’s mind. In the wall is a button. You press it and shampoo comes out of the shower, again and conditioner does, once more and you get shower gel. And once you’re done, it turns itself off and you take your towel and leave. 

Of course all us Muggle-borns found this hugely confusing, but great fun. We were in awe of magic, loved the way it made life so easy. Back then I’d happily have _lived_ at Hogwarts, where your clothes are washed by magic and your food is cooked by magic and you never need to squeeze the shampoo bottle to get the very last bit out. Now I think differently. Magic spoils wizards. They hide behind it, lack the courage to tackle life. Wizards forget that there’s a world out there that they could tap into and adore, if only they were happy to get their hands dirty. Wizards are like little girls who cling to their beautiful bought doll, not able to accept that if they made their own dolls from paper, they’ve be worth a thousand times more where it matters. Wizards don’t have to work and they’ve become complacent. They’ve lost sight of meaning and purpose and they don’t know what counts anymore.

So I guess the moral is: it takes more courage than you may think to squeeze a shampoo bottle.

**Courage.**

‘Um, Evans.’ His voice was unnaturally shy, and for the first time ever, I thought he might actually mean what he was going to say. ‘Do you want to go to Hogsmeade with me this weekend?’

I turned to him, shocked. I was genuinely surprised. Of all the things he might’ve said, that was not the one I’d expected. I studied his face for signs of teasing and found none, the second big surprise. I was in complete dispute about what to do and I just stood there, not saying anything, thinking it through. Slowly, I realized that he was waiting for a response. His eyes were nervous, he was biting his lip. Even he long, messy black hair was standing on end.

‘What about…you know…?’ I asked nervously.

‘He’ll get over it. I really like you Lily, all right? It only started last term and it’s got worse and worse. Please go out with me, I don’t really want to beg.’ 

I laughed slightly, I was impressed. ‘You’re brave.’ And he was. We both knew what could happen to him if this was found out. I was flattered, too. I mean, this guy could get anyone, anyone at all, and he was asking me out. I checked one more time, I was getting adept at noticing when a guy’s just playing you for a fool and it didn’t look like he was.

‘So?’ he looked like an eager child.

I nodded slowly. ‘Yeah, sure. That sounds fun.’

Sirius smiled. ‘Cool. See you then, Lily.’

**Courage.**

I admired the sun. Every evening, without complaint, it allows night to engulf it. It sets, in the comfortable knowledge that it will rise the next morning. It puts complete trust in itself and it never has to go through fear or worry. When I was at Hogwarts and afterwards, waking up alive was a miracle. Voldemort was at large and everyday news of death, mutilation, young lives tossed away echoed through the streets of England. The sun never worried that the night would take it and never let it run free to play upon our skin and bring light to the places we know and love. The sun was brave.

I loved sunrises far more than sunsets. Sunrises were the sun, as it always did, escaping the night, breaking free of the chains and running out past the traps. Sunsets were when the sun tired of running all day, and the night shackled it again, and regretfully, it rested, working up the courage to escape, take to the skies and be alive. At Hogwarts, it reminded me of going home. Spending time with Petunia as we grew further and further apart, as jealousy turned to resentment, turning to hate, turning to prejudice. But when I went back to Hogwarts, it was like leaving the blackness of the night and returning to the sunlight. It may be somewhat polluted, but it was still a brighter sky.

**Courage.**

I sat in the clinic, alone. My appointment was twenty minutes ago, and I was running late. I sighed and smiled slightly – it wasn’t as if I had anything better to be doing. Or anything worse.

I was nervous and more than a bit upset. _You could,_ my conscience told me, _have asked someone to come with you._ I shook my head, which made some of the people in the waiting room give me weird looks. Let them stare; I was too old to explain myself. But of course I wasn’t. I was sixteen. Sixteen years, not even two decades and yet last night, I’d dreamt of raising a child. I looked down at my stomach, still as flat as ever (which wasn’t as flat as I’d like but that was the curse of my father’s genes). The child I’d dreamt of was in there. And I was going to kill it. When I’d spoken to Phoebe and Jess about it, they’d said I was brave. _Wow, Lily. You’re going to have the abortion? I’m so impressed. I’d probably take the weak way out, have it, put it up for adoption or something._ Having the baby – the weak way out? At that moment, having a child seemed like the most courageous thing I could do. And I guess that was why I wasn’t having it. 

‘Miss Evans? The nurse is waiting in Room 4.’

**Courage.**

‘Lily, we need to talk.’

I looked into his cold blue eyes. I’d never tell him, but I’d never been keen on his eyes. Too blue, too cold, too stern. Even when he was a teenager, playing the fool, his eyes remained stern; they burrowed into your soul. But not in a sweet, emotional way. With a cruelty and an anger that left you feeling violated and a little afraid. Yes, I may love him, but one of the happiest moments of my life was seeing Harry arrive with the green eyes we both knew and loved.

‘Why?’ I was genuinely surprised.

‘I have something to confess.’

I swallowed hard. ‘What? What is it James?’

He had that hard, angry look that I remembered from when he’d lost a Quidditch match out of his own stupidity. I knew him well enough to know that he was this close to physically beating himself up, he was remorseful, defensive and embarrassed. I also knew, with a sinking heart, that whatever he’d done wasn’t good, and was probably a pretty big deal.

‘You know last week when I said I was staying at Sirius’?’

I gave an involuntary squeak. ‘Yeah?’

‘I…I…I met up with an old friend.’

I swallowed again. ‘I’m guessing you don’t mean Sirius.’

‘No…Narcissa.’

‘Narcissa?! But…but she’s married…and you’re married...and…and you haven’t dated her since fourth year…and…but…but–’ I broke off as my voice cracked. I was determined not to cry. James put his arms around me. I think that was the point when I was meant to look hurt and scream _Don’t touch me!_ But I didn’t. Because whatever he’d done, it would always remain that in James Potter’s arms was the most comforting place I knew.

As despised tears rolled down my face, I felt him let go of me a little. He put his hands around my face and lifted it to meet his. He looked at me, stern eyes in a stern face. ‘That took courage, you know.’

I stepped back in shock.

‘James Potter, how could you? Do you expect me to say thank you? Clap you on the back, I’m impressed that you told me? Cheers, I’m glad you fucked Narcissa, ‘cause you got the opportunity to be fucking brave?’ I slapped him round the face, all my fears and tears behind my hand, and stood, breathing shallowly.

James held his hand to his face. ‘Thank you.’ He said quietly. And he looked into my eyes and, little fucker that he was, he made me fall in love with him all over again. 

**Courage.**

I know this is short, but I’m writing it at three in the morning ‘cause I kind of wanted to finish before I went away (I’m back on Friday). Reviews rock. A lot. Love, Angel. 


	7. Freedom

**Freedom.**

‘Go on Lily, look you’re doing it!’ My mother’s face was the picture of ecstasy. She had big expressions. When she was angry she was red-hot, when she was scared she was terrified. But when she was happy, oh, when she was happy the world lit up and fairies danced in the trees and shooting stars made the whole sky glow.

I pedaled harder than ever, concentrating on going forwards, on keeping my balance. I pedaled so hard that I shot past my mother and down the path towards the swings. Petunia was sitting on one of the swings, my stabilizers discarded near her. I thought about the swings as I cycled past them, faster than I’d ever imagined going. When I’d first gone on the swings, I’d thought they were incredible. I’d been so excited about the idea of going forwards and backwards and left and right and up and down somehow simultaneously. But now they seemed pale and drab. You went forwards. You went back. Constrained. But here, on my bicycle with no stabilizers to slow me, I could go anywhere. I could cycle right out of the park, right out of the city. I was Lily and I could ride a bike and I could go anywhere and do anything.

**Freedom.**

_They were sitting in the garden. It was one of those days when the sun_ is shining _and the sky_ is blue _and_ _so it must be summer. It was truly too cold to be outside, but they didn’t care. Not a bit. Because it was as close to summer as it got and there were flowers and trees and today was one of those days when she was proud to be a Lily._

They were sitting in the garden. It was one of those days when the sun _is shining_ and the sky _is blue_ and so it must be summer. It was truly too cold to be outside, but they didn’t care. Not a bit. Because it was as close to summer as it got and there were flowers and trees and today was one of those days when she was proud to be a Lily.

_The tall, pale woman with the dark hair that so perfectly matched her child snapped at her daughter. She told her that No, she couldn’t fly like the birds. She turned to smile at the red-headed child on her other side, not realising that she just shattered another of her dark-haired daughter’s dreams and it is this that will one day turn her to a shell of the vivacious girl she once was._

The tall, pale woman with the red hair that so perfectly clashes with her child snapped at her husband. She told him that No, he should let Harry watch the birds. She turned to smile at the black-haired child in her lap, in the comfortable knowledge that she would not do to her son what her mother did to Petunia. She knows that one day, this will turn him into whatever he has the potential to be.

_The small child’s eyes filled with tears. Would she ever be free as a bird?_

The small child’s eyes filled with tears as he stared at the sun. He couldn’t wait to be free as a bird.

**Freedom.**

‘POTTER! What the hell do you think you’re doing?!’

He ruffled his hair in that famous way we all knew. ‘God, Evans. You’re such a drama queen.’ And everyone laughed and we picked up our books and walked to History of Magic as if it was just a normal day. Which it was.

_A drama queen._ Lord, Potter. You do have that knack of hitting the nail on the head, don’t you?

I tried to remember the last time I’d had that incredible feeling. That whirl of make-up and black cloth and lights and you walk in and you can be anyone and you can truly do anything and you’re free.

It must’ve been the end of term in year 6, before I’d left my primary school. We’d done a valedictory performance of Macbeth. In truth, eleven-year-old schoolchildren are not really old enough to appreciate Shakespeare, but we threw ourselves into it in a way no one had expected. Conner Johan and I were shoo-ins for the principals and we were proud of it. I spent hours rereading the play. This performance was going to be my last connection with the Muggle world. It had to be perfect.

Oh and it was. It was completely incredible. We brought the house down. I’ll never forget that moment. As I walked onto the stage, holding that famous letter and I wasn’t _Lily, the daughter_ , wasn’t _Freak, the sister,_ wasn’t _Lil, the friend._ I was Lady Macbeth. I was torture and cruelty and softness and I, I was free.

They didn’t have plays at Hogwarts. 

**Freedom.**

Damn it, I hate being a nice person. I really do. Because it means that if even your arch-nemesis is crying, you still have to go and comfort them. It is times like that I wish I had a heart of stone.

‘He…he…he just s-said it wa-was o-over!’ It was quite a shock to see such redness in her. Narcissa Black was usually such a pale individual. Her skin was white and her hair was cream and her irises were so small that even her eyes looked white. But today, as she sat on the staircase that swung between the Charms and Defence Against the Darks Arts classrooms, her skin was red raw, her hair was dark and lank from lack of care and her eyes were red and swollen. 

I sat with her for a while as she rocked back and forth. I sighed, meaningless thoughts running through my head. And then I said the stupidest, smartest thing possible.

‘Well, maybe it’s a good thing. I mean, now you’re free. You can kiss Indo Gurtz.’

Nothing will stop a child crying like a new idea, and it seemed to be the case for teenagers too. ‘What?’

I looked at her with a careful balance of comfort and scathing. ’Oh come on, everyone knows you fancy him. Now you’re free to have a go.’ 

Narcissa stared at me for a few moments. And suddenly, a change came over her. Her sneer returned, her back straightened, her eyes brightened. ‘I have to go to Defence. Bye, Evans.’

I smiled slightly. Indo Gurtz, you are welcome.

**Freedom.**

Petunia Evans Upper IV 14th May 1975

Philosophy Homework 

‘Where is the line between freedom and anarchy?’ Discuss.

I believe that one who is free is one who has freedom has the ability to do what he or she pleases without being stopped or hindered by a separate power. An anarchist is one who supports a system of government with no government. And it is in these definitions that the difference, and so the line, between freedom and anarchy lies. In anarchy, one is nominally free. One has no government, no laws, one is provided with the illusion of freedom. But not being stopped or hindered by the government is different to not being stopped or hindered by _a separate power._ Even in anarchy, laws will stand. Unwritten laws, decreed by society. It will still be unacceptable to run around naked, for example. And other laws, those decreed by parents, teachers, religious leaders. Even in anarchy, people would not be free to, say, practise witchcraft or Satanic rites. Only with no other people could we truly be free. Only in a system where – 

‘Lily! Leave my homework alone! Get out of my fucking bedroom!’

**Freedom.**

Usually James was an incredible lover. I couldn’t hope for better. He was tender and loving and exciting and sexy. Sex with James was the stuff of my fantasies and more besides. But I couldn’t enjoy it that night. I wasn’t sure, but it felt like he was gripping me tighter, rougher, crueller, removing my freedom. I convinced myself that it was all in my head but it felt wrong. As reality and fear connected and mixed, so did I with James and the world turned upside down.

Tight, rough, cruel, restricting freedom. I suppose he had the right to be. I mean, I had married him that morning.

**Freedom.**

Thanks for all the reviews guys. This chapter was inspired by something my ‘friend’ Zoe wrote like two years ago. Hope you enjoy it and please review. Love, Angel. 


	8. Maturity

**Maturity.**

It was third year. I was still immature, still cared when the Marauders pranked me. Still self-centred enough not to realise they did it to everyone. And right at that moment, I was dripping wet and I was cold, but my anger burned white-hot. I may have been fourteen years old, but I hadn’t yet managed to reach ten in maturity. I saw the world in terms of me. I didn’t like Potter, therefore Potter was bad; I loved watching Quidditch, therefore Quidditch was universally good. Big picture? Mine was minute.

That grated on Petunia. My mother was volatile at the best of times and just plain morose at the worst of them. Petunia had had to grow up fast and my obsessive youth, my curious optimism, my wistful joy got right under her skin. In a way she envied my freedom, but in other, more important ways, she scorned me and I felt about two inches tall. Which was how I was acting.

I screamed at James Potter, threw a tantrum, played the toddler to perfection. How I was going to regret that in the years to come.

**Maturity.**

Herbology. Another area where Muggles beat wizards hands down. Game, set, match to proper flowers, proper trees, proper weeds. Plants that grow when you put the seed in the soil and you give it plenty of sunshine and water and it grew in the dead of night, unseen. Plants that grow at the rate of a marathon runner and yet when you look at it, it’s just a plant – still and solemn. What we dealt with in Herbology wasn’t flora, wasn’t plants. No plant should make a noise. No plant should move for no reason. No plant should have eyes and teeth, lips and a voice, a confrontational personality and a sweet bedside manner. No plant should be able to understand itself better than I understand it.

Plants mature under loving care, not magic. Mature through someone coming out everyday and watering them and maybe putting a bit of fertiliser in the pots. Someone caring enough to put in time, to put in effort. Cursing, bewitching, transfiguring, charming, don’t fit into the equation. Don’t try and make them.

As I breathed in, I could nearly catch a hint of privet and ivy and weeds on the breeze.

**Maturity.**

‘Lily. L-Lily…Lily I need to talk to you.’

I looked up. Jess’ face was troubled, threatening tears. I didn’t want her to cry. When she cried it destroyed the picture. Jess had a face and body like it had been carved out of pure mahogany. Sometimes I’d see her move and be involuntarily surprised. She was a sculpture, an idol, a work of art. It was disconcerting to see tears in the eyes of an idol. 

She took my hand and led me down the stairs. We walked far out into the grounds and lay on our backs in the evening sun, hot and sticky and the faint hum of bees and the faint flap of evening moths.

We lay in silence for a while until I turned my head and looked into her dark eyes.

‘You wanted to tell me something?’

She smiled very slightly, a flash of white in a sea of chocolate brown. She propped herself up on one elbow and stared at me, deeply, intensely. A creeping sense of déjà vu permeated my senses and it wasn’t till her lips met mine and my mind’s eye flicked to an identical picture that it fell into place. Spot the difference. Jess. James. James. Jess.

She put one arm on the other side of me and in a moment she was lying on top of me and her lips were pressed against mine and her tongue swirled around mine, darting into my mouth, flickering to the top of my mouth, the sides and she’d told me all she’d wanted to.

She sat up, one leg on either side of me and she smiled and yet again I marvelled at the brilliant white against the deep, rich brown that was espresso in some lights and latte in others. She bent to kiss me again and her hands set to work on my school shirt. She placed one hand behind my head and kissed me so deeply, I didn’t even notice her remove my bra.

She sat up again. I peered at her, confused and elated and breathless. Her hand crept, trembling up my stomach. It paused momentarily just under my breast and I thought for one terrible second that she was going to stop. I couldn’t, couldn’t stop. Her hand crept up my body, inch by inch, and suddenly I was cold. She kissed my nipple, kissed my lips, kissed my eyelid as I lay on the slightly damp grass and tried to imagine how I was going to face her the next morning.

She climbed off me and handed me my bra. I had that tired, cold feeling like I’d just had sex. I sat up and got dressed. And I felt taller that night than ever before and I felt older that night than ever before and I felt colder that night than ever before.

‘Oh and Lily. That thing I had to tell you – I forgot to return your library book. Oh yeah, and I’m gay.’ She sped off up to the castle, a brown silhouette against the pink sky.

**Maturity.**

I once thought that the stars in the sky were visions of another world.  
 Now I know better.

_‘Visions of another what now? Gawd Lily you’re so bloody STUPID. Stars are just big balls of flaming gas. Big empty balls of gas.’_

I once thought that the space under our skin was filled with light, that if I were cut I would shine.  
 Now I know better.

_‘Light?! Oh for fuck’s sake Lily. Blood, bones, muscles, tendons, fucking ligaments. That’s what’s under our skin. Idiot.’_

I once thought that family love unconditionally, that the love between mother and daughter could not die.  
 Now I know better.

_‘I hate you. I’ve always fucking hated you. I tried to bloody well love you, I tried to be who you wanted me to be. But I couldn’t do enough. I can’t do it, Mum. I can’t be fucking Lily.’_

I once thought that you could get through anything if you love a person enough.  
 Now I know better.

_‘I don’t give a shit if you love me, Lil. I don’t give a shit if you hate me. I don’t give a shit if you get down on your knees and kiss my fucking arse. You’re a witch and you’re a freak and I’m just me and I hate you, I fucking well hate you. You're no fucking sister of mine.’_

**Maturity.**

It wasn’t as if I didn’t know. It wasn’t as if it hadn’t been drummed into us many a time by Madam Young, the school nurse. It wasn’t as if I didn’t know.

But it’s not supposed to happen to you. It’s the same thought that goes through one’s head when one tries that first cigarette. _It’s all alright, I won’t get hooked on the first one. Won’t happen to me._ And then. _Ok, so I’m somewhat hooked. But I won’t get lung cancer. Won’t happen to me._

Only this time it was, _Ok, so we didn’t use protection. But I won’t get an STI. No way. Won’t happen._ Pregnancy didn’t even cross one’s mind.

But there I stood, with that pregnancy test that haunted me for the remainder of my life, in the bathroom I’d grown up in. Except until now I hadn’t, grown up that is. But staring at that little stick, knowing that it would change my life forever, knowing that it affected so many hundreds of people. That was terrifying. That was growing up.

That was maturity.

**Maturity.**

We often talked about his future. About the cruel world that we’d thoughtlessly tossed him into and fundamentally left him to fend for himself in. He’d have to grow up fast, very fast. He was going to have to witness more pain and suffering than any child would have to. And most likely, he’d never see his twentieth birthday.

But he’d be special. He’d been chosen. He was going to be a hero and he was going to be remembered. In our frivolous moments we’d laugh together – he would go to Hogwarts and save the world and he’d get the girl. But in our serious moments we’d contemplate the danger and the adventure and the death that was to pave the streets of his life. And in our emotional moments we’d look one another in the eye and know very well that the only reason we speculated so much on his future was that we knew that we would never be able to see it. We’d sit in our living room in our cottage in Godric’s Hollow and we’d drink tea and we’d predict our own deaths.

And once we’d agreed again that we would fight to the death for him, James would go upstairs and I’d look over his crib and tell him that I loved him and that he was never, never to grow up. And then I’d kiss him like it was the last time I’d see him. Eventually it was.

**Maturity.**

Well. Long time no see, sorry about that. Had a short bout of writer’s block (or was just lazy, take your pick), but I cured it by writing other things (please go onto my profile and review them. Thank you.) and I’m back. So, hope you enjoyed this one and please review. I love you all. Angelxx


	9. Secrets

**Secrets**

It was late, past twelve anyway, and Peter and I were the last ones in the Common Room. I’d always had a soft spot for Peter – he was alone in the world in a way I identified with. He was close to his friends, especially Remus, but never felt good enough. His anxious eyes, his tiny, almost unnoticeable stammer, his blush whenever he spoke – clues to a puzzle that his friends were to self-obsessed to solve. I wanted to give him a hug, to say it was alright, he was doing fine.

Even with all this, however, we’d never been close. In our first year he’d had a crush on me and had begun to avoid me like the plague, lest James think he was making a move. He was far more in love with James than he’d ever been in love with me and the thought of losing him as a friend filled him with fear.

But this was now our sixth year and he’d completely gotten over me. I put the finishing touches to my essay on Cross-Continental Apparation and sat back on the sofa. It wasn’t brilliant, but I didn’t care. Over in the corner, Peter was sighing over his Astronomy homework. He looked up and I gestured for him to come and sit with me.

‘Fuck it,’ he sighed. ‘I only took the fucking subject because James was.’

‘Ah.’ I said quietly and paused. ‘D’you need some help?’

‘Nah,’ he replied. ‘I’ll do it tomorrow, s’not in ‘till Thursday.’

‘Right.’ I said absently. I contemplated this for a while. ‘You really like James, don’t you?’

‘James really likes you.’

I gave him a look. ‘That’s not what we’re talking about.’

He sighed again and yawned. ‘Yeah, I know. Yeah. Yeah I do like James. Most of the time. But sometimes, sometimes I hate him so, so much.’

‘How come?’ I knew perfectly well it wasn’t fair to ask, but I figured I might as well.

‘He’s so fucking lucky. He’s a total arrogant wanker and yet everyone worships him. He’s good at everything, he’s good-looking, he’s got his best friend who’s as good as, but not better than, him at everything. He gets away with fucking murder. It pisses me off so, so much.’ His face was twisted with rage.

‘Is…that it?’ I said shakily.

‘Yeah…no. The thing that really gets me is that he’s so cruel to me. Not just him, Sirius too – Sirius more. Sirius hates me. They know that they’re on the top and I’m at least a few rungs down the ladder and they spend all fucking day rubbing it in my fucking face. _Shut up, Pete. You’re such an IDIOT, Pete. For fuck’s sake, Pete._ I can’t fucking stand it.’

Something echoed in my head _Shut up, Lily. You’re such an IDIOT Lily. Gawd, Lily._ Petunia. _  
_

A tear rolled down his sandy cheek. ‘But, you know, they’re my best friends and stuff.’ He looked me in the eye. ‘And all that…stuff, yeah? It’s a secret, OK?’

I nodded, dumbly, and watched him go into the boy’s dorm.

**Secrets.**

‘So what are you trying to tell me, Lily? That you were pregnant with my fucking child and you went and murdered it, in cold fucking blood without bloody telling me? Or that you want me to keep bloody quiet about it?’ There was a harshness in his voice that tore me apart. If he was angry with a friend, he’d yell loudly, make a big show of it. But now his voice was hollow and his words bit into me and gave me stabbing feelings in my cruelly empty stomach.

‘I…I…I can’t.’ And it was true. I couldn’t. Couldn’t live with it, couldn’t deal with it. I swallowed and continued in a stronger voice. ‘I just thought you should know. It didn’t seem right not telling you.’

‘Really? That’s really why you told me?’ The sarcasm in his voice cut through my heart. ‘Or, Lily darling, was it because you couldn’t keep your filthy little secret to yourself and just HAD to tell someone? Because, Lily Evans, you think that by telling me you’re sharing the blame. Because you KILLED IT. YOU FUCKING WELL KILLED IT.’ He was yelling by now, blinded by rage.

‘Her.’ I whispered it, desperately.

‘What?’

‘Her. It was a girl. Called Anna.’

‘Or…or rather…not called Anna…’ He sighed and suddenly he was crying and he held me in his arms because it was over, it was all over.

‘I’m sorry, Sirius, I’m so…I’m just so fucking sorry.’ And he rocked me back and forced.

He smiled very slightly, cold as steel. ‘Well I suppose we both have our filthy little secrets.’ I shivered with fear.

**Secrets.**

Whispered words, hidden gestures, telepathic messages. There were things you mentioned. There were things you didn’t. Words had multiple meanings. We’d sit round at dinner and speak them with long pauses as everyone slowly worked out the intention of each phrase spoken. We’d choose each syllable as carefully as a wedding dress, each sentence dripping with suggestion, insinuation.

We all had our secrets. Every morning we’d awaken separately and go our separate ways. We were three women sharing a few pints of blood, living in a house together and we had no clue who we were living with. What Petunia and my mother did with their days was any guess of mine. It was like we were asleep around one another, completely oblivious. But one day I was to awaken and notice that Petunia was engaged and my mother had left weeks earlier with a simple note: ‘Secrets kill. Love, Mother.’

**Secrets.**

Remus Lupin was the guy you could trust. He’d sit on the two-person loveseat by the fire and eat Honeydukes chocolate and you could cuddle up to him and have a good moan about life and homework and he’d listen and munch. And then he’d hand you half the bar and have a good moan about whichever girl he was currently getting grief from. Because although Sirius had the reputation, Remus was almost as bad. He’d taken every girl in the year out on a date – kissed her, told her she was the only one, dumped her. With Sirius there were no dates, no kisses, no promises, just sex. In some ways that seemed better to me.

But, despite appearances, Remus Lupin could not keep secrets.

At all. Even if he wanted to. Even if he had to. Life and death, win or lose, he just couldn’t. it was like an obsession within him – he just had to spill the beans, spread the gossip, let the cat out of the bag. Pretty much every Griffindor in our year learnt this the hard way. In the first few weeks, we all sort of gravitated towards Remus as a safe haven of comfort. We told him what we thought of our classmates, what we thought of our teachers, what we thought of our friends. And somehow, by the next morning, it was all round the year.

No-one could work out why. This obsessive compulsive breaking of trust just seemed to fit Remus Lupin like a hat fits a headless corpse. It was all wrong. But still it happened and over time we learnt to vet whatever we mentioned to Remus.

It wasn’t till years later that I understood why Remus couldn’t keep other people’s secrets. He was too busy keeping his own.

**Secrets.**

We were walking along the canal, licking ice lollies in friendly silence. It was the summer after first year and it was the last happy day I remember with my sister. It was one of very few. 

We’d been to the market and bought Petunia a new top for her date with that Nick from down the road. We’d been shopping for lipstick; playing around until our hands were so covered in red streaks we looked seriously sunburnt. We’d stopped at the corner shop, bought ice lollies and now we walked along by the water, watching the narrowboats make their fairytale way towards the next lock as the obligatory overweight man on deck called to his wife inside ‘Jean! The fucking motor’s only gone and bollocksed up!’ It was perfect.

Until we spotted a tallish blonde girl walking towards us with one arm round a shorter brunette and another round a spotty youth with hair the colour of the canal beside us. Petunia gave me a look and briskly pushed me into the bushes.

‘Alright, Di? ‘Vette, Lee?’ Petunia was nervous.

The tall blonde one, who appeared to be called Di, nodded. ‘Hey Tunia, yeah I’m alright. Who’s that bitch?’ She spoke with that would-be cool accent that truly meant she was a good girl whose parents made her dinner every night and didn’t allow her to swear in the house.

Petunia tossed her dark head and her eyes flashed. ‘Haven’t a clue. Just some random girl.’

Di nodded slightly and beckoned Petunia. She joined the line up beside the brunette and walked on, giving me the slightest look from the corner of her eye.

I guess this time I was the dirty little secret. I threw my lolly in the canal and went home.

**Secrets.**

Reviews rock. So incredibly much. They upgrade my day from shit to shit-good in 4 seconds. So please, please. I can’t improve without reviews. Plus (bribe) if you review me I may review you. All love, Angelxx 


	10. Choices

**Choices.**

James laughed on the morning of Thursday May 3rd, 1979, when he heard where I was going. Laughed, as if it was a joke to even consider going where I was going to go. I stood in the kitchen and glared at him. Usually, that Look would shut him up, but he just kept laughing, holding onto the table to stop himself falling over with hilarity. I folded my arms.

‘I don’t know why you’re laughing.’ I said crisply. ‘It’s been in the papers for weeks. I’m just going to go and make my choice, just like every other British citizen.’ 

James stopped laughing and looked down at the _Prophet_ on the table. His forehead creased. ‘Huh?’

I rolled my eyes and tossed him a copy of today’s _Times._ ‘Not that paper.’

James shook his head and shoved the _Times_ to the other side of the table, almost knocking over his coffee in the process. ‘Oh. Not in any _real_ paper. Anyway Lil, why you want to go take part in some crackpot democracy that doesn’t work is beyond me. Muggle governments don’t work.’

I looked at him in astonishment. I couldn’t believe him. ‘What are you on about? Muggle governments are by the people for the people. Wizard governments on the other – it’s a fucking dictatorship! The Minister for Magic is arbitrarily chosen, pretty much by himself. It’s insane. I’m going to go and make a difference in _my_ country.’ I turned haughtily on my heels and left.

I walked to the Church hall and put my tick in the box for the Liberal party and posted it in the ballot box. All things considered, Margaret Thatcher’s victory seemed painfully ironic.

**Choice.**

‘Lydia!? No child of mine is being named after a slut from Jane Austen.’

‘Jane who?’

I looked pityingly at James. ‘Never mind. Just no. How about…Grace?’

James laughed loudly. ‘That’s not fair on the poor kid. With the two of us for parents she’ll never manage to live up to it.’

I smiled a little wryly. ‘True. Nicola?’

‘Nicola Potter. Maybe. Hmm. What about, erm…Anna?’

My heart skipped a beat. I jumped, involuntarily. I flushed. ‘No. No I don’t think so.’ But James wasn’t listening.

‘Yeah…Anna Potter. Anna. Little Annie. I like it.’ _Anna Evans. Anna Black._

‘No.’ I said, more firmly.

‘Why not?’ James was irritated. The child in him came out. _Come on Lily, pick a name._ _Come on Lily, pick my name._

‘Just…just…no.’ I could feel the disloyal tears pricking at my eyes. I blinked, swallowed and plastered on a fake smile. ‘Let’s just go with Nicola, alright?’

James looked confused but nodded. We sat in silence for a few minutes. Suddenly James looked up. ‘Lily…’

‘Yes?’

‘What if it’s a boy?’

**Choices.**

Phoebe held out the packet towards me. ‘You want one, Lil?’

I was drunk. I was young. I was reckless. I wasn’t going to die and if I did I had nothing to live for. I was free. I was stupid. I was smart. I was allowed. I was forbidden. I was flying and I was crashing down to earth. My eyes were tight shut as I let the sunshine in. I was a teenager. I was meant to. My life was my own and I was going to do with it what I wanted to. Every single one was a reason to do it, and a reason not to.

I took one, placed it between my lips, Phoebe lit it.

I sucked in and for the first time that fire lit in the back of my throat and my mouth was so full of smoke that I wasn’t smoking it, it was smoking me and then I swallowed and that tiny little smile inside me lit me up forever.

James looked at me pityingly. ‘Those things give you cancer.’ I glared at him.

‘Fuck off, Potter. It’s my choice.’

**Choices.**

I was painting my bedroom one summer. Painting it black. Black matt, with black gloss outline, black carpet, black curtains. Whatever Petunia said about it, it was my decision.

I like black. Always have done. It’s nothing to do with being depressed and needing some black box to cry in, or being all goth and worshipping death. I just like black. It’s the only colour that has every other colour of the spectrum within it, and is so powerful it obliterates them all. Black is dominant, potent. Every other colour is disloyal to itself. Black is the absence of colour, of thought. The absence of anything to cloud one’s vision. Black lets you see everything as it is, every crack and rip and tear. Black reveals it all, and then covers it up. Black doesn’t let anything else have a look in. Black is selfish and arrogant and self-centered. Black is a statement and a personality and a fuck-you-all demeanor. Black is more than a colour, so much more.

I guess the reason that I chose to surround myself with black was because I wished I were a little more black within.

**Choices.**

****

‘Right. Right. OK. So it’s…Theory of Magical Religions. And Mermish. Yeah. Definitely.’

‘ _Finally_. Lord Almighty, Jess. I thought you’d never choose.’

‘Yeah…Oh God. But I want to take Muggle Studies too.’

‘Oh for fucks SAKE, Jess.’

As Phoebe Banished cushions at Jess’ head, I watched, pondering Jess’ absolute inability to decide anything. She dithered over cornflakes or toast at breakfast. She wavered between socks and tights. If it weren’t for Phoebe and I pushing her along, she’d never do anything. In a way it was simple immaturity, needing a mother to chivvy her along and make all the choices for her, but in others it was very complex fear. Jess’ parents were Muggles, loosely related to some of the world’s most famous Squibs. They may not be high on Voldemort’s hit list, but she knew and we knew that for bored, Muggle-baiting Death Eaters, they’d be a bit of a coup and it scared her shitless, every moment of every day. Like bulimics with food, this was her form of control. 

Getting it right, every second of time, took so much of her that she didn’t leave enough to worry. It was short term gain, a quick fix, and it hurt. It killed me to watch her work herself into a frenzy over nothing, sometimes less. She was self destructive, a grenade and she was pulling out her own pin. Neurotic didn’t even come close.

If you were wondering, she ended up taking Theory of Magical Religions and Care of Magical Creatures.

**Choices.**

Yeah, I know it’s short. But it has a lot more emotion in it than some of the others. This chapter has caused me a lot of tears and brought back a lot of painful memories. Couple of things – the dates and results of the British General Election are historically accurate, and the Liberal party did indeed run (they didn’t join the Social Democrats and become the Liberal Democrats for another few years yet). Also, I at the moment am also painting my bedroom. I only wish I’d had Lily’s bravery to choose all black, like I’d planned. Review please.

Angelxx 


	11. Rain

**Rain.**

I loved the rain. I knew it was clichéd, the teenage girl dancing in the rain – classic holiday romance. But my dance was different. There was a tiny wilderness in the grounds, behind the Greenhouses. And whenever I saw the storm begin, I’d run there and stand in the downpour and dance all alone to the rhythm of the raindrops hitting the ground. And it was _my_ place, all mine. Just the rain on my face and in my hair and in my eyes until I could hardly see, hardly breathe, hardly _live._ I was so close to being dead and it was amazing.

One day I went down to my place in the rain with a boy I once loved. And we lay there all afternoon until we were so wet that we thought we’d never dry off and it felt like there was nothing but rain in the entire world because he was my entire world and all I needed was him and the rain and the world.

And though I loved James Potter with all my heart, he could never reach the place in my heart that I reserved for that boy in the rain.

**Rain.**

When I was six we went to the beach. It was all Tunia and I could talk about for weeks. Four days, five nights, a thousand dreams come true. The _beach._ Sand. Sea. Sun. Fun. Fun in the sun on the sand by the sea on the _beach_. I suppose with that resting on it, the beach was bound to crumble under the pressure, to crack. But it didn’t do it alone; it enlisted the help of the rain.

And the rain was only too happy to oblige. It felt like it hadn’t rained in Cornwall for weeks. It had all been saved up and had come down in a constant downpour over the short week we were there. Petunia sat in the room and read books, a frown that was later to become permanent carving itself into her lips. My mother sat by the window, the curtains drawn and a tiny gap at the bottom. She hardly moved, save lighting another cigarette, her unvarying accessory.

And I. I sat on the beach, completely alone. My mother could watch me from the guesthouse window. I just sat on the sand, all day long, still as the ground beneath me. I may not have been building sandcastles, but I build my castles in my head. I stared at the angry sea and filled my castles with equally angry barons and dukes. For one of the last times, I let my imagination run wild. It didn’t rain in my castle. It wasn’t until years later that I remembered it had rained that holiday at all.

**Rain.**

Only in England did we have weather like that. The sky was grey, it was pleasantly warm and it was drizzling. It didn’t drizzle anywhere else. That perfect balance of raining and not raining. When enough water is coming down that you can feel it, but not enough to make any real impact. It’s the most amazing weather.

British people don’t appreciate drizzle. They frown, they become miserable, they fiddle with umbrellas and mutter ‘Bother’ and look up at the sky in a very British manner. Drizzle is incredible. If you step out into it with a huge smile and walk slowly and enjoy the oh-so-softness of each droplet falling onto you, it can lift your mood like no other weather. Drizzle beats thunder, beats downpours, beats spitting, beats every possible kind of rain you can imagine. I can’t see how people don’t understand that.

Throw away the umbrella, bitch, and stop being so damned British.

**Rain.**

‘Hi. Can I come in?’

I wasn’t totally sure if it was a person on my doorstep, or simply a fully clothed man of water. I nodded dumbly and stood to the side.

‘Did you walk all the way here?’ The water creature nodded.

‘Why the hell didn’t you Apparate? In all this rain and…’

‘I…I fancied a walk. A walk in the rain.’

I looked shrewdly into Remus’ eyes. ‘And Haina threw you out?’

‘No, no I walked.’ Remus’ eyes glinted with a touch of mischievousness.

‘On her request?’

‘But of course.’

I laughed slightly and handed him a steaming cup of tea. ‘So you need somewhere to stay?’

‘Just a night, Lil, I swear. I’ll just give her tonight to calm down and then I go talk to her tomorrow.’ He was a Marauder again, something he hadn’t been since he and controlling Haina had hooked up. He was flirtatious, suave and persuasive. He purred each word in a way that made one and all feel strangely chatted up.

I mentally thought through the trouble of having a visitor for a month.

‘Yeah, alright Remus. Guess we can’t have you _living_ in the rain.’

**Rain**.

I traced the drops down the window with my fingers, the way I’d done when I was a little girl, chubby fingers making greasy marks on the glass. I could still remember the wonder – I could follow the path of this raindrop so perfectly and yet never get wet. I’d taken to reminiscing a lot recently. It helped keep my mind off other things.

Two weeks. Two weeks and a few hours. Since he’d…

Since.

My mind was constantly tuned to the same station. I couldn’t shake it off. As I washed my hair or cooked dinner or went shopping a mental image danced in front of my eyes. Of tanned flesh melding into porcelain, of dark hair mixing with pale, of two sets of cold blue eyes, half closed with frantic passion.

I loved him. I love him. I’d sworn to love him forever and I was loath to break a promise. He had broken my soul. My heart was tearing into pieces. 

A piece for the James I loved – _the James I’d married._

A piece for the James I hated – _the James who’d cheated._

A piece for the James I’d created – _the mythical romantic who didn’t exist._

A piece for my first love – _always and forever._

A piece for Harry now – _the baby, perfect as he always was._

A piece for Harry in the future – _great as he would be._

A piece for Lily – _as the pieces of my heart fell from my grasp I held myself in a tight fist._

As I traced the raindrops down the window, I saw them in red, the blood falling from my shattered, broken heart. As each one reached the sill, I truly saw what James had done to me. And as I sat there, tears rolling down my cheeks, mirroring the raindrops, I saw my trust washed away with the rainwater.

**Rain.**

I just want to say a quick thank you for the overwhelmingly positive reception I’ve had so far. It’s really helped me through a complex time in my life (it’s just one of those moments when growing up is taking a lot of my time). But, yeah. Now that I’ve finished my summer job, I’m going to really concentrate on this. I’ll soon be posting Chapter 12 and then a think I’m going to spend a few days re-writing Chapter 2 – I’ve developed so much more as a writer and I really feel it lets the story down – before I start on Chapter 13. I have no clue when this’ll finish. I’ve become so attached to the Lily I’ve created (though she really created herself) that I’m almost addicted to writing her story, it feels disloyal every moment I’m not. Which is totally not healthy. Anyhow, review sil vous plait.

Angelxx 


	12. Love

**Love.**

My name is Lily Evans. I am twenty years of age. I have been in love three times.

The last is a beautiful boy called Harry. He came into my life a few weeks ago and stole my heart with a single look. I want to spend my entire life with him. I want to hold him in my arms and let his smile play a tune on my heartstrings. I want to stroke his cheek and allow every happy emotion within me to seep into him. I want to make him as happy as he makes me. I want every moment I breathe to be spent with him. I want him to know that nothing he could do could make me love him a single iota less. I love him obsessively. I have been in love three times, but this is something different.

The second is a boy called James. When I felt there was no one I could turn to, he sat beside me and stopped the tears from falling with a tiny smile, a well-placed kiss, a touch of the hand. He makes me feel like the only girl in the world. He lies beside me and plays with my hair and kisses the freckles on my shoulder and just as I start to think that this romance thing is getting dull, he sticks his tongue in my mouth and the sexy teenager I fell in love with returns. I can’t help but love him, even if I try not to. Even when he hurts me and throws my heart on the floor I love him. I’m trapped in love with him, but that’s all right. He’s my Prince Charming, my knight in shining armor.

The first was a boy who stole my heart with stolen kisses and teenage sex. Sometimes, even now, I wake up with soft grey eyes looking into mine. Two years we secretly spent in passionate love. Our relationship was a whirlwind of kisses in the dark, stolen moments, sexual encounters. We’d lie naked in the rain, no one but us in the world. He filled my imagination to the point where I believed I’d dreamt him up. He took my trembling hand in his sure, steady one and pulled me into his heart and into his bed. He was love and lust rolled into one and made me shake with fear for no reason at all. He changed me in a way that no one else could. He took a fiery young girl with a shock of red hair and left a fierce young woman who could love and laugh in a way the girl never could. Being in love with him was like flying. Eventually, I knew, I would fall and my dreams would be broken. But I shook my head and refused to believe it. I floated higher and higher, until the bubble broke and my heart has never healed. Being in love with Sirius Black was like playing with fire.

My name is Lily Evans. I am twenty years of age. I have been in love three times

**Love.**

‘Andromeda Black, thank you for agreeing to meet me.’

The tall girl who sat down across from me could have been Sirius’ twin. They both had that slightly royal look, pale with purest of blood and long, effortlessly smooth black hair. She was a Black, through and through. I couldn’t help but wonder what she might need from the likes of me. She ordered a glass of orange juice and looked back to me.

‘I know what you’re thinking.’

I blushed slightly, the curse upon each and every redhead. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’ I tried desperately to appear brazen, but a tiny tremor entered my voice.

‘You’re wondering why I, who am in looks and demeanor the epitome of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black, am here to ask help from you, a Muggleborn I know nothing of.’

I blushed again. ‘Well, yes, I’m afraid that I rather was. I would always have assumed that the heritage I am born into would be offensive to one of your stature.’ That was the other problem with speaking to Andromeda. Her pretentiousness was infectious. Usually I would never use a phrase like ‘One of your stature.’

‘My cousin told me of how your husband is James Potter and you are Muggleborn. I need your help.’ Suddenly, the aristocratic features softened, a wicked smile filled the thin lips and I understood it all. ’You see, I have fallen in love.’

She extended a white hand, blue veins clearly visible, and handed me a photo. It depicted a tall, slim young man with a slightly feminine, heart shaped face and dark eyes. He was handsome, a little camp looking, scruffy. He looked like just the kind of guy that I knew perfectly well Blacks are not supposed to fall for. I reasoned that that was probably half the infatuation.

‘Ted. Ted Tonks.’ And when Andromeda spoke his name stars fell from her lips and her eyes lit up and the sun warmed her face. I smiled encouragingly, but her face fell. ‘He’s a Muggle.’

I almost choked on my iced tea, pure astonishment. I looked into her grey Black eyes and suddenly saw fear, a feeling of being unwanted and deep self-loathing. ‘Oh, God.’ I breathed. ‘I’m so sorry.’

A tear crept into her eye, as she almost laughed. ‘So am I.’ 

**Love.**

‘We’re gonna…be alright, right?’

I looked into Phoebe’s huge, green eyes - as brightly green, I knew, as my own. I nodded. ‘Yeah, yeah I think we just might.’

‘But, I mean. We have to go to work. You’re getting married. Jess is going to Buenos Aires to catch unicorns. Us two, we’re going into the Order. Voldemort’s going to be baying for our blood. Can we really handle so many…changes?’ She sounded genuinely curious.

I laughed slightly. ‘First of all, Jess is going to _train_ unicorns, not catch them. Secondly…yeah. Because you guys are my friends and I love you. And so long as we love each other it’ll all be OK. So smile. Please.’

Phoebe laughed, her whole face lighting up. ‘Yeah, Lil, I love you too.’ And I could almost see within her that she meant it. It was such a great change, such a relief. When Jess had said the same words, the emotions attached had been so awkward that the next day she announced her plans to move to Argentina. I hated the way her sexuality had destroyed our friendship. I hated the way she loved me and I loved her but in such different ways that it had destroyed the bond that we had sworn wouldn’t buckle under anything, not Voldemort, not nothing. Yet it had buckled under the difference between waking up next to someone with breasts or without.

Phoebe and I sat in silence for a long time, I stared into the distant, Phoebe absently played with her messy blonde curls. A thousand thoughts ran through my head, and I could see by her concentrated expression that Phoebe’s brain was also spinning. 

‘Do you think I’m going to be alright, married to James?’

Phoebe laughed her little girly laugh. ‘You’ll be fine. He loves you and you love him and I love you and you love me and it’s all going to be _all right._ Remember the Beatles: All you need is love.’

I wonder if that’s what she thought after she joined the Death Eaters.

**Love.**

The script was always the same. The acting was always wooden and the critics slated it. The curtain opened and the same people were forced into parts they could not and had no wish to play.

‘I love you Mummy.’

‘I love you too Lily darling.’ Cue kiss and cuddle.

Enter Petunia. ‘I love you Mummy.’

‘Tunia, my darling, aren’t you a little old for this touchy feely business?’

‘Sorry, Mummy.’ Exit Petunia.

Curtain fall.

I knew how many times Tunia tried to rewrite the play. But the director wasn’t having any of it.

**Love.**

‘I wonder what makes them do it.’

I snapped out of my late night, sunset and honeysuckle reverie and turned to look at my husband. ‘Makes who do what?’

‘Death Eaters. Do what they do.’ His eyes were vacant and his mouth was set in a soothingly familiar way.

I mused on this thought. ‘Power, I guess. Probably agree with the whole purity thing. Loyalty. Something like that.’

‘Love.’ James’ voice told clearly he hadn’t been listening to a word I’d said.

‘Love?’

‘Yeah. They must love Voldemort, a hell of a lot. Why else would they obey him so obsessively? Why else would they be willing to leave their families, their homes, their heritage for a man they do not know? What other emotion is strong enough to evoke such reactions? What else makes grown men tremble, what other force could make people kill and die for just one person?’ He nodded, a tiny smile playing on his lips as I grew cold and scared. And, as suddenly as it’d started, his strange mood ended. He stood up, muttering something about going to bed. He reached down and kissed my pale cheek.

‘I love you.’ He told me. 

Never before had those three words terrified me so.

**Love.**

Wow. Longest chapter yet. Please review. And please, if you would be so kind as to also read Chapter 2, because I rewrote parts of it. Thank you. Have a nice day.

Oh, and a quick note about a number of reviews I’ve got. I know that a lot of people have not been happy about my James/Narcissa plotline. I’m sorry that it has offended you, but I can’t say I’m going to compromise my work for that. The reason that I have that and that my story is not AU is that it _could_ have happened. I try to create plot twists that could fit with canon, however implausibly. I'm truly sorry if this offends anyone and thank you very, very much for the ConCrit and the reviews in general. 

Angelxx 


	13. Thread

**Thread.**

I had cleared away the dinner plates, I had fed the cat. I had finished my book, the house was clean. There was nothing for James and I to do but sit in silence and watch the fear in one another’s eyes blaze bright and turn red. It felt horribly like waiting for death, which, of course, it was.

As I sat down at the kitchen table, I saw a spider gradually lower itself in front of me, tantalizingly slowly, until it was at my eye level.

I sat silently, fascinated by the eight legged wonder before me. It dangled in mid air, hanging on a thread as thin as the hair from my head. Little did it know that the tiniest touch from me, a slight brush of the hand, and it would fall down, down, down. Until there was nowhere further to fall and it had hit rock bottom.

Rock bottom. Like the body buried at the end of our garden. The victim of James’ well placed _Avada Kedavra_ and her own sheer bad luck. Like the spider on the thread she had dangled on her own loyalties, before a brush with Lord Voldemort had destroyed them and she fell down, down, down. It’s easy to be strong when it’s all going well, but when that moment came, Phoebe Dancer showed her weakness.

The spider climbed back up the thread.

**Thread.**

Once, when I was about ten, my primary school went on a school trip to a thread factory. As per, we all spent hours checking that we had remembered our lunches and our anoraks and our clipboards, and promptly forgot everything we learnt on the trip itself. I vaguely remember a lecture on the difference between thread and yarn (thread has a ‘d’ in it) and the construction of thread (press the big green start button), but that’s about it.

After all, there was only one part of a school trip that required thinking about.

I had been sitting in the corner at the back on the coach. This had a certain social status. I was obviously in the popular crowd; I was sitting at the back, and in one of the seats with plenty of legroom too. But I wasn’t one of _the_ popular kids, I was not included in the conversation and I was hardly acknowledged. But I was still better than the kids who sat at the front, the nerds who clung to each other. But then we all did that. I clung to the popular girls in the same way that the sporty kids clung to one another, in the same way that the losers clung together, in the same way that the nerds clung together. 

Our cliques were our home base. Most of us weren’t comfortable in them, but it was that way or condemnation to eternally being alone. All of us, every one, not waving but drowning. Hanging on the thread we’d just learnt about, this one made up of friends we didn’t like and reputations we didn’t have. Listening to the ‘right’ music, even though we hated it. Wearing the ‘right’ clothes, even though they looked awful. Talking the ‘right’ way even if it meant thinking through your accent before every sentence. Someone, somewhere had decreed how it worked. Someone, somewhere was checking, making sure we got it just right. 

And the moment you got it wrong, the thread was cut. And that was it. 

**Thread.**

‘Evans, I need your help!’

I sighed in the all-suffering manner I had inherited from my mother. ‘What is it, Potter?’

James Potter bounded over to the sofa I was sitting on and handed me two, identical plain white t-shirts. Confused, I turned to him.

‘What am I meant to do with these?’

He rolled his eyes, as if it were obvious. ‘It’s my Muggle Studies homework. One of them was bought in Hogsmeade, one of them is Muggle-made. We have to figure out which one’s which. Help. Please.’

Rolling my eyes, yet again, I began to inspect the clothes. Truth be told, although Potter wasn’t to know this, I was intrigued; I’d never realized that there was a difference between wizard-made and Muggle-made clothes. Thinking back, it made sense that they did. But at that time I didn’t know and, while searching, I discovered that truly astonished me.

Wizard-made clothes have no seams.

Seriously. None. No edges. Wizard jumpers don’t unravel and wizard blouses don’t tear at the seams. Because even the shirts on these people’s backs are held together by the one and only thing that makes them different from their Muggle counterparts. It made me angry and I didn’t quite know why. Aren’t Muggle clothes good enough for wizards? Children in countries we learnt about in seven-year-old Geography sit in airless rooms to make those clothes and these people should fucking well wear them. I don’t know why this mattered to me, but it did, it really did and my rage was overpowering. Like a madwoman I pulled at the shirts, ripping the first to shreds and then going for the second…

My arms went limp as a realization dawned upon me. Wizard clothes can’t break, either.

The irony just wasn’t there.

**Thread.**

I sat, mending one of James’ shirts, by the electric fire in the ornamental fireplace, looking, I could only hope, like a romantic heroine in from Charlotte Bronte or Louisa May Alcott. Remus sat across from me, a cup of coffee by his side and a book in his hand. He’d recently discovered my collection of classics. When Petunia and I had sold the house of our childhoods, I had been the only person who wanted those books. I had a secret, hidden dream that one day my mother would return, find my home and sit in the evenings, reading aloud like she had when I was small and mothers didn’t leave their children and nothing, _nothing_ would break me.

I tied off and threaded a new piece of cotton. ‘What are you reading?’

Remus looked up. ‘A Little Princess.’

‘Frances Hodgson Burnett.’

He nodded. ‘Yeah.’

I remembered reading that book. I’d never been particularly keen on it, Sara Crewe always seemed like a pious little mare, but it had always had a place in my heart. There was the one part I loved. It was the bit when she was telling of being a storyteller. The image of children in a circle around her, listening to her spinning her yarns, waiting for the next instalment, her fame and her status. _I_ wanted that. I wanted to tell the stories I dreamt up to everyone. I wanted to sit in a room and illustrate the tales of my imaginary heroes and I wanted people to goddamn well _listen._ I wanted to be the one that everyone loved and adored.

Some dreams are too selfish to be allowed. I pulled the thread through and smiled at Remus.

‘One of my favourites.’

**Thread.**

‘Prior Incantatem.’ Professor Turbridge tapped the board and the words appeared. ‘The reverse spell effect. This charm works in two ways. If the incantation ‘Prior Incantato’ is said over a separate wand, the last spell that that wand cast is shown in a sort of shadow. The second way is – I do hope you are copying this down Mr Pettigrew – the second way is far rarer.’ 

Turbridge tapped the board again. A strange kind of mirage appeared, just like a Muggle film on pause. It showed two wizards, obviously preparing to duel.

‘These wizards each hold a wand containing dragon heartstring. However, unusually, these two heartstrings come from _the same dragon._ Now watch what happens when they are forced to do battle.’

At the same time, blue light came out of one wand and red out of the other. The lights met in the middle and joined. The class gasped. The light turned yellow and thin, until there was just a thread of yellow light between the two wands, tiny beads of light flowing along it. Then shapes, smoky, unclear, began to form themselves in the centre. We were hypnotised by it, and just as the first shape was beginning to show itself, Turbridge tapped the board again.

‘Prior Incantatem. The reverse spell effect.’

**Thread.**

Just a note, I do realize that there are moments in HP when wizard-made clothes break, I am sorry. I’m kind of hoping that it’s a small enough detail that you might be able to see past it? Please?

I do hope that I haven’t enraged you too much to REVIEW PLEASE?

Much love, Angelxx 


	14. Holes

**Holes.**

You left me, when I needed you most. You left me with nothing but a hole in my heart and a head full of memories. You left me, and it wasn’t your fault and you couldn’t help it and yet, somehow I still hated you for it. I hated you for so long, and it wasn’t until weeks, months, years later that I realized that you’d never left, not really. Because although that hole in my heart wasn’t filled with flesh, it wasn’t yet filled with stone and until it was, you’d still be with me. You left me and I thought I’d never forgive you, but I have, I have and it’s so, so wonderful.

I wasn’t quite ten years old when you left. My best friend and my closest confidante. I wasn’t quite ten years old, and yet I couldn’t accept that neither were you and that if this was killing me then you were already at least six feet under. And I love you and I’ll always love you and I hope you’ll understand this.

_‘I’m leaving, Lil. I’m moving to the States.’_

Eight words that tore a hole in my heart. And every time I think about you, it stings a little. But that’s ok. It’s worth the pain. It’s worth the hole in my heart.

**Holes.**

‘You _didn’t.’_

‘I did.’

‘B-But…How?’

‘This guy in Ravenclaw did it for me. You know Harry Thimble, right?’

‘The crazy punk?’

‘Yeah.’

‘But, Phoebe, seriously. A _lip piercing?’_

But she was serious, deadly serious. She actually wanted to walk around with a hole in her lip. Piercing was much bigger than it had been. According to my mother, when she was born in the forties, no-one had them, and it wasn’t until about the sixties that even ear piercing was accepted. Even now, lip piercing was out there, very out there. The only people who had them were people like Phoebe’s Harry Thimble and his group of would-be punks - Muggleborns who’d been part of that subculture before they’d arrived and had no wish to leave it at Hogwarts so had banded together. I had hated them back home and I hated them here. We already belonged to a subculture – magic. Did we really need to tear ourselves apart within that? I thought the same of Sorting.

Phoebe fiddled with her lip ring. I lay back on my bed. I thought about needles and sterilization and holes in you. And then I thought about that pain in your lip if you were to kiss Phoebe and I thought about needles a bit more and the next thing I knew it was morning.

Phoebe got detention for the rest of the term and lost fifty points for Griffindor. But she kept the ring in.

**Holes.**

‘Please mind the gap between the train and the platform.’

Jess and I walked through, out of the Underground station, up towards Platforms Nine and Ten. We took a cursory glance round, before walking straight through to Nine and Three-Quarters.

Every Muggleborn at Hogwarts remembers their first time at Platform Nine and Three-Quarters. I still don’t understand why on the Hogwarts letter, they don’t write _To get to the platform, walk through the barrier between Platform Nine and Ten._ After all, it would make far, far more sense. And why three-quarters? Does that mean that there are also Platforms Nine and a Quarter? Or Platform Nine and a Half? It doesn’t seem to make any sense, and if there’s one thing that pisses me off, it something that doesn’t make sense for the sake of not making sense.

No, time spent on Platform Nine and Three-Quarters is time I never did enjoy.

**Holes.**

When I got my Hogwarts letter, I had chosen not to tell anyone about it, no-one at all. But after a while I couldn’t handle the guilt. Justine Leslie was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, that was all. And that place was by my side when the secret wouldn’t contain itself within me and came spewing out. 

We’d never been close, but suddenly she was my best friend and the only one I could turn to. That summer, when I returned, I saw no-one but her.

The summer after first year was one of the nicest I can ever remember. It was neither too hot nor cold, it hardly rained, it was sunny. It was one of those summers where you wonder why people go abroad when Britain has such wonderful weather. And it was on one of these beautiful days that Justine and I found him.

He was no older than thirty, tired-looking, dishevelled. He had dark hair in such a mess it put me in mind of Sirius Black or James Potter. He wore jeans, crumpled and a shirt, stained black with old blood. On his left breast were two holes, each the size of a speeding bullet and the source of the blood.

He had been stuffed quickly into the alleyway behind the butcher on the high street near where we lived. It was hard to tell if the strong stench of blood was animal or human. I regret to admit that, in our gory excitement we actually used him as a doll. We pulled him out of sight; we poked him and prodded him. We stuck our twelve year old fingers in the bullet holes; we, giggling, took our first look at a real penis. 

It wasn’t until years later that I started to have nightmares about it.

**Holes.**

There were no museums in our town. No galleries, no huge, magnificent houses, no historic wrecks. The only culture one could pick up was the huge room in the town hall, which was on occasion filled with art exhibitions. They played the song of that summer, Vincent, softly in the background and tried, futility to pretend that they really were Van Goghs on the walls. I loved that song. I loved Don McLean, I loved Van Gogh. I used to go hang out there, all alone at the weekend, looking at the same pictures again and again and listening to that song on repeat over and over and feeling artistic and high brow.

_But I could've told you, Vincent_

_This world was never meant_

_For one as beautiful as you._

I couldn’t tell if it was piety, loneliness, sadness. It was the Spring holidays of third year, and it was killing me and I didn’t know why. That feeling when everything is kind of going all right and you really have nothing to cry about. Yet I would sit and try so, so hard to cry and nothing, nothing would happen and I don’t think I’ll ever know why. Nothing had happened, I just spiralled down in self-indulgent depression and it made me angry. I’d go and look at those pictures and ignore the biting, knowing hole inside me.

**Holes.**

OK, listen up. There are two canon errors in this fic. I’d like to officially apologise for them.

1\. James’ eyes are hazel. Not blue. My fault – should’ve checked the Lexicon.

2\. Petunia has blonde hair. Not dark. Lexicon’s fault – should’ve checked the books.

Am insanely sorry and all that jazz.

Review please, Angelxx 


	15. Angels

**Angels**.

James once called me an angel. We lay in slightly damp, post-coital euphoria, still young and innocent. It was a happy time, the kind I remember at Hogwarts. He lay there and told me that there was no one he could love more and that I had saved him from his mortal soul and that I was an angel, an angel, an angel from heaven sent to save the earth and save him and he loved that angel so damn much. And the angel smiled.

Sirius once called me an angel. We lay in breathless, post-coital excitement, grown up and sophisticated. He was still lying half on me, naked from the waist down, and he stroked my thigh where he’d simply pulled up my skirt because in our relationship taking off clothes was just a barrier to animalistic lust. He pushed up on his arms and hung, the tips of his hair tickling my nose and he looked at me with almost a sneer in his eyes. And he told me I was a fallen angel and then his sank back down and told me that it was his fault because when he had fallen he had dragged me with him. And the angel kissed him and told him it was all right, it was all right.

When James called me an angel, I felt like an angel. When Sirius called me an angel, I felt like the devil.

I guess that was the difference between them.

**Angels.**

When my mother laughed it was the song of angels and the sound of Gods. I was sure that in heaven, you heard my mother’s laugh as dinnertime entertainment. She beat any minstrels. It was so sweet, light and pure. There was a beautiful breathiness to the beginning and a slight sigh at the end. It was neither too high nor too low. I loved her laugh. I loved her.

Petunia had inherited her laugh. As she grew older it became a little more clipped, a little more controlled as she struggled to control her loneliness, her self-loathing, her spiraling depression which sparked off anorexia, self harm, attempted suicide. But, just sometimes, she’d forget herself and you’d hear a breathy hiss, a chuckling, giggling _laugh_ and a sigh and it was like my mother was laughing through her.

I hadn’t inherited it. I had an ugly laugh; a donkey-like bray that ended on a cackle. Sometimes I snorted. It sickened me. I longed to be one of those girls who could sing out a flirtatious laugh and turn the head of every boy in the room.

‘Lil, no offence, but I sure hope the baby has my laugh.’

I cackled and blushed.

**Angels.**

We once received a catalogue of fairy wings. Honest. Just fairy wings. Thousands of them. In every size and shape and colour of the rainbow. Flower fairies, fairies of stars and the night sky, the fairy of the moon, hearthside fairies, big fairies and small. Graceful fairy queens and Puck-like imps. Every one had its own special variety of wings and each one was different. Tunia and I spent hours pouring over it. We begged and grovelled and pleaded for them. We promised the insane things that children promise. Cleaning the whole house until we leave school, eating only greens forever, to always be perfectly good.

She caved. We knew she would.

I chose a pair of butterfly-fairy wings – pink and purple, feather-lined. They were beautiful. I spent hours lusting after them in the catalogue, waiting for them to arrive. I would turn into the fairy of the butterflies. As I flew around the garden, butterflies that were seldom seen in such a polluted part of the city would magically be drawn to me, moths to a flame. They’d dance on my arms and tangle in my hair and we’d fly away because I was Lily, the undiscovered butterfly.

You can probably guess the punch line.

They were cheap, scratchy and tore with a look. The feathers fell off and littered the floor like scattered ashes. I threw them off with all the disgust of a disappointed six year old and sulked in my room.

You can probably guess the next punch line, too.

Petunia had opted for the special angel wings. They were huge, almost as tall as Tunia herself, and wide. Purest white, soft and elegant, fringed with soft, silvery stuff. Sequins, glitter, delicate floaty fabrics. Beautiful. Pure, eight year old bliss. Petunia dressed in her long white nightdress and neatly tied white ribbons in her ebony hair and it was the first time I realised that I was the plain one in the family. Granted, I had my wild red locks and my bright green eyes, but Tunia was breathtaking. Her skin was the pale hue I later recognised in the Blacks. Her hair was black as coal and the contrast was awe-inspiring. With dark eyes and blushed lips, she looked like an Alice in negative.

And yet. 

‘Tunia! Oh, you do look nice. But _Lily._ Lily! You look like a princess! Oh, I’ll always love those long red curls. I was always disappointed, you know, that even one of you was cursed with my gothic looks. That black and white thing, it’s not very attractive anymore, you know.’

I could never understand why.

**Angels.**

I never believed in angels. I guess it came from my mother, she never believed in them either. She was always very dismissive of any kind of afterlife. When you died, you died and it was always your own fault. There was no redemption, no last minute way to claw yourself out. Death was death, was death, was the end. 

My grandmother died when I was seven years old. I didn’t have the surreal experience that most children have of hearing some family member they hardly know tell them about how _Granny hasn’t really gone, she’s an angel in heaven and she’s looking out for you_. My memory of the occasion was dressing in a black frock and going to synagogue and nearly falling asleep, before returning home and sitting in silence on a hard kitchen chair next to Tunia as my mother virtually threw a bottle of gin somewhere in the vicinity of her mouth, followed by half a bottle of red wine. She laughed as she did it, laughed like it was the funniest thing in the world that she was weeping and screaming ‘Good riddance to the old bitch’ manically. Suddenly, she looked up at Tunia and me with a surprised face like she didn’t really know we existed. She looked down at the empty bottles. She threw them on the floor, so hard that they smashed and left a clear puddle like tears and a red puddle like blood.

She stared at Tunia, with a concentration I hardly recognised. And she grabbed her by the shoulders and spat in her face, actually spat. And she slapped her and screamed that Tunia was a dead spit of her grandmother and I sat there as she cried and Tunia cried and I couldn’t have been more shocked.

I never believed in angels. I guess it came from my mother. Like a lot of things.

**Angels.**

We sat in silence. We’d given up all pretence that the silence was meaningless, the idea that we were reading or eating or writing, so there was no need to talk. We just sat in our chairs and stared at one another, the sound of silence ringing in our ears. Every now and then a thought would dart across one of our minds and we’d almost voice it, but it had gone to long. Conversation was impossible this far. But then,

‘Lil, I can’t take this.’

I looked at him, a metaphorical question mark tattooed onto my forehead.

‘You, hating me. I can’t take it.’ He paused, and laughed very slightly. ‘This isn’t how it’s meant to be, is it? I’m supposed to think _I want to get on my knees and beg, but I can’t._ Well, I can. I can because I love you, I love you so much and _fuck,_ I don’t know how I fucked this up but I did and it’s all my fault. It’s all my fault and there’s nothing I can do about it. Except get down on my knees and beg.’ And just like that, he knelt in front of me. ‘Lil…Lily…my Lily…Lil, Lily, Lily, Lily _please._ I love you. I need you. Without you I’ve gone, I’ve fallen. I fucked you up and I fucked us up and it broke us and it broke me and it’s all my fault and all I can do is beg you to forgive me because I love you. I love you so much. Please. Please. I’d do anything. I can’t lose you. Even thinking about it I…I can’t take it. Please. Please, Lily. And…and I’m being really, really inarticulate but, whatever. I love you. More than you could ever appreciate. You’re my angel.’

I opened my mouth to tell him that he can’t love me that much, because he’d slept with Narcissa, but the words died on my tongue. Because with that one word he’d pulled a hundred heartstrings and tears rolled down my cheeks and when James stood up and kissed me our tears melded and the salty kiss was everything I needed to know.

**Angels.**

I know that I said that this chapter was going to be more fun and stuff, and I thought it was when I was writing it, but I guess I'm going to have to resign myself to the fact that this story is pretty angsty and sad. Or 'poignant' as I'm going to euphemistically put it. So yeah, this chapter is a birthday present for Carla - chapter 15 for her 15th! Oh, and a big thank you to Kali, for making this better.   


Much love, Angelxx 


	16. Feathers

**Feathers.**

And when I unclenched my small pink fist there it was, as beautiful as ever, white and soft.

And I held my hand out flat, so tense that it vibrated very, very slightly with the effort.

And it floated away on the gentle breeze that I fancifully hoped was the North Wind.

And I watched it flit and flutter and fly, purposelessly, tossed here and there.

And I saw it fly over the fence to next doors garden.

And I looked down at my chubby little hand.

And it was completely empty.

And I went back inside.

And I was alone.

**Feathers.**

Sirius and I were in Hogsmeade, walking through the streets of brightly coloured houses. We strolled along, together but apart, comfortable and grateful for the company, but wrapped up in our own thoughts. OWLs were approaching and we were both feeling the pressure. Slowly I noticed that the bony, firm arm round my waist had slipped away. I turned. 

Sirius had stopped a few paces behind and was looking into the school playground. A group of tiny little witches were playing in one corner, using a magic skipping rope that turned itself. Sirius was watching them with a weird intensity and I went to join him. A slight, haughty witch stepped next to the rope. Her friends began to chant as she jumped. 

_‘Birds of a feather flock together_

_Wizard with wizard to stay pure forever_

_Marry a Mudblood or half blooded boy_

_And I'll guarantee it'll bring you no joy_

_But marry a Malfoy or better a Black_

_And everyone knows that you're on the right track.’_

Sirius laughed darkly and spat bitterly on the ground. 

He looked at me.

‘No.’ He said suddenly and his face twitched. ‘I don’t think my parents would laugh if we got married.’

Nervously, I stepped closer to him and placed a finger on his thin lips. ‘Don’t talk like that.’

I replaced my finger with my lips. We kissed to the beat of the skipping rope on the pure black tarmac.

**Feathers.**

‘Phoebe, hey. Have you heard, it’s a Hogsmeade weekend this weekend.’

‘Oh, good. I need to go to Scrivenshaft’s; I’m out of quills. I’ve been borrowing Lily’s weird Muggle things.’

I laughed. ‘Pens, Phoebe. They’re called pens. Or biros, if you want to be specific.’

‘Whatever.’ She laughed as she accepted the quill in Jess’ outstretched hand and dipped it in the ink well she had Conjured by her side.

Jess and Phoebe concentrated on their Care of Magical Creatures homework. I watched them. Jess furrowed her brow looking very serious and studious while Phoebe stared at her hand writing, with a gormless expression as if she couldn’t quite work out if it belonged to her or not. I smiled; I knew not to be fooled. Phoebe, scatty, blonder-than-blonde Phoebe was the genius of the three of us. I worked hard, I got the grades. Jess worked hard, Jess failed consistently. Phoebe lazed around, scribbled half a roll of parchment where two were required and passed with flying colours. It was the brick wall between Jess and Phoebe and I hated them both for it.

It was a little odd, actually, to see Phoebe writing with one of Jess’ quills. Jess wrote with sober black feathers, each with a vibrant red stripe right through the centre. They were a perfect reflection of her character. She may seem dull, sober and simple on the outside, but inside she was passion and zaniness personified.

Phoebe on the other hand, wrote with lime green or with hot pink, with cool blue or sunny lemon, with metallic silver or dazzling gold feathers. They were shining, shimmering; they screamed ‘look at me’, but even louder they screamed ‘love me, bitch, love me’. I guess that was Phoebe in a nutshell. She loved to be wanted and she loved to be loved.

I reached for my wand and Transfigured Phoebe’s quill to iridescent pink. It just fit better.

**Feathers.**

Teenagers are always looking for rivals. Every moment is a competition. Everything that can be is analysed and compared, usually unfavourably.

In Hogwarts when I was there, there were two things that were judged more than anything: Blood purity and wand core. The wand core was the main one. After all, anyone outside of Slytherin openly admitting that they cared about purity was basically coming out as a Death Eater. But wand cores were _the_ thing. 

There was a hierarchy. Dragon heartstring was at the bottom. A dragon heartstring wand core was an indication of weakness, of sadness, of uselessness. Next up came unicorn tail-hairs. If you were smart, you could almost get away with one of these, but if not it was just another way of showing that you were a bit of an idiot. After them were the weird ones, like Jaylia in the year above, who had a mermaid scale core, or Hyton Titan with his Occamy eggshell core. They were pretty cool, certainly note worthy. 

But if you really wanted to top the social pecking order, you needed a phoenix feather wand core. I was never sure why this one was so obviously the best, but it was, oh it was. They all looked the same, they all worked the same, but that image of a beautiful, sparkling phoenix feather was so potent, so electric. People would try and fake in the wand shop to get a phoenix feather core.

James Potter had a phoenix feather.

Sirius Black had a phoenix feather.

Remus Lupin had a phoenix feather.

Peter Pettigrew had a unicorn tail-hair.

Lily Evans had a unicorn tail-hair.

Phoebe Dancer had a bolt of stardust.

Jessica Turner had a dragon heartstring.

Teenagers are always looking for rivals. 

**Feathers.**

When I went to Hogwarts I got an owl. It was nothing special; it was the standard gift when a child got that letter. She was black, sleek and shining almost blue. I named her Circe and she was a good companion. She’d nip me gently when I came up to the Owlery with a parcel home and she’d always stay for a chat over breakfast when she brought me the paper.

In the summer of fourth year I noticed a change in her. She started to act colder towards me, she went out at night and wouldn’t return for days. I missed her. Over the last few summers I’d gotten used to having her in her big cage, shuffling merrily and clicking her beak in friendly manner. I asked her what was wrong, but she simply cocked her head and ruffled her feathers. I sighed and gave up.

But one night, just before three am, I awoke to a louder scratching than I was used to. I squinted at the window and it slowly dawned on me that there were two owls scratching. I let them in and climbed into bed, dimly recollecting that I only owned one owl.

The next morning it all came out. I watched the owls together, in slightly daunted silence. I’d never seen owls in love before, but that’s what they were – owls in love. They rubbed up to one another and clicked beaks and stared into an opposite set of amber eyes with sheer adoration. I opened the window, bade goodbye to my pet and watched them fly off into oblivion together. Then I collected up the last shiny back feathers from the bottom of the cage, placed them in a small box and threw out the cage. 

On the first day of term she flew in with my paper and I watched in surprise as her boyfriend flew over to James Potter. I tapped her nose and told her she had bad taste. She smirked and nibbled a croissant.

Even the owls knew.

**Feathers.**

Hey, I'm back. Sorry for the slight delay. I blame English coursework (among other things). But well, hope you enjoy and please review. Pretty please.

Much love, Angelxx 

 


	17. Joy

**Joy.**

I remember a cold afternoon in third year, when Jess and Phoebe and I sat by the fire in the Common Room and talked. Just talked, from shiny noon to shady dusk, about anything and everything, everything and nothing. I think it was that moment that I truly knew I had friends.

Jess, always the poignant, always the soulful, looked at us and frowned slightly. ‘Ok, here’s a question. What was the happiest moment of your life?’

I frowned. ‘You go first.’

She sat back slowly and smiled. ‘I guess it was when I was seven and I got married.’

Phoebe looked at her with confusion and puzzlement plastered comically on her face and I was sure that I looked just the same.

Jess laughed. ‘Oh, you know. When you’re young and the boy next door gives you his last lollipop and asks you to marry him. So you and all the kids on your street gather round and you walk down the aisle and the boy from across the road pronounces you man and wife and your groom puts a gummy ring on your finger and kisses your cheek. It was…it was so nice and pure and…it was OK. You know? I mean it wasn’t amazingly fantastic or exciting, but it was nice and I enjoyed it and for those few moments I felt like I was the most important person on earth, you know? It was…special. You don’t get those moments anymore.’

Phoebe’s smooth cheeks were glowing and her mouth was spread wide showing the crooked, white smile I knew so well. ‘My go.’

We turned to her expectantly.

She tossed back her blonde mess and laughed frankly. ‘I guess it was at Christmas a few years back. I got this magical makeup thing that I’d wanted for ages, I mean for ages and I _had it._ ’ She tossed her hair back again. ‘But my little sister just got the junior version so I told her she could share mine.’

I blinked. ‘That’s it? That’s your happy moment?’

‘Well, yeah. I got to be selfish and be happy about my own gift and I got to be pious and be happy about Hennita’s. It’s all the human wants in one, right? Your turn, Lil.’

‘Oh, right. Ok. Um, I guess my happiest moment would have to be my sister’s birthday when she was six. Because I was happy and my mother was happy and Tunia was happy and it just felt like the whole world was happy. I can’t be happy when someone there isn’t happy. The whole world has to smile for me to smile. So yeah, I guess that would be it.’

We studied one another for a few moments before all rising and returning to our dorm for restless, prickling dreams.

**Joy.**

_I could feel hate coursing through my body…_

_I could feel disgust coursing through my body…_

_I could feel sadness coursing through my body…_

_I could feel irritation coursing through my body…_

I could feel joy inching into my body.

Happiness, joy, elation. That amazing sense of pure, selfish pleasure: it’s so different from the hard, cheerless emotions. They work their way around you, they power through blood vessels and boil the blood around them, they pump into muscles and tense them, they force their way into your mind and overcome everything else.

Joy is much friendlier in its approach. It starts in your fingers, and sometimes your toes and it slowly edges up into your arms and then to your torso, your legs and finally your mind. Joy relaxes you and chills you out before it lets you become aware that it’s permeated you. And once you know it, you have plenty of opportunities to wallow in it, to let it engulf you before it goes away. And when it does go away, it departs slowly and leaves a calm smile in its wake. Hatred, sadness, disgust tend to go as fast as they came and leave only a confusion and bewilderment that we humans label as depression.

I’m Lily Evans. I cry and I hurt, but I still love being happy. How many people can truly say that?

Exactly.

**Joy.**

‘I love you, Lily.’

I smiled and lay heavily on his shoulder. He stroked my hair, fiddling with the ends like a toddler.

‘I mean, I really do. I never thought I’d actually love a girl. I always thought I’d like, like them or be like devoted or whatever. But this, this is something else.’

I smiled again and kissed his pale, thin arm. He tensed it and I watched the muscles, just below the surface, following every contour with the lightest touch of my fingertip.

A bony hand cupped my chin and turned my head to face his.

‘Do you love me Lily?’

Did I love him at that moment? I don’t know. I _wanted_ to. I wanted to love him so much that he’d never leave me alone, even in my dreams and so that I couldn’t live without him. I wanted romance without compromising on passion. And it was at that moment that I realized it. The moment that a woman knows that she wants to love a man, she can and she does. And that knowledge that I loved him was such a happy relief.

‘Yeah, yeah I think I do.’

I reached up to kiss him and he put a finger on my nose, barring me. ‘And are you happy?’

I looked into his harsh, soft grey eyes and smiled a slow smile. ‘Yeah, yeah I guess I am.’

He cocked his head and spoke in a businesslike manner. ‘Good.’ He pecked me on the lips and turned away.

**Joy.**

I had a cousin called Joy. She was twelve years my senior, died of breast cancer at the age of twenty-two and left behind only my aunt who went on to marry a tango dancer from Spain, acquire a wardrobe of glittering ball gowns and spend her life aboard cruise ships round the Med. We didn’t mention them, another Evans household taboo.

But once when I about nine Aunt Kathryn and Joy came for a visit. It lasted exactly four hours, nine minutes and seventeen seconds; I’d recently perfected time telling and I remember counting it out, very conscientiously. We sat in the living room, awkward silences the special of the day, nibbling crisps and staring at one another.

Joy turned out to be very aptly named indeed, though I do remember Tunia whispering to me halfway through that perhaps Ecstasy might have been better. Everything was amazing, incredible, marvelous and whatever other superlatives one may choose. School was ‘perfect’, her friends were ‘wonderful’, their new house was ‘just magical’. Tunia, my mother and I had a good laugh about it when they’d gone.

But, yet. The next day, when Tunia asked me how my cereal was I answered ‘luscious, absolutely fantastic’. And you know what, it felt good.

Sometimes we need to exaggerate a bit.

**Joy.**

I sat at the table, coffee by my side, James up in my bed, reading the Muggle papers with all the contentment I could want. I flicked through the Times aimlessly, looking for a headline to catch my attention. I found one.

_‘Britain Prays For Joy‘_ I read slowly.

_‘In a survey of over 1200 British people, more than 67% told us that their quick fix for happiness is spending time in a place of worship for prayer or meditation. 28% said food and only 4% said shopping…’_

I closed the paper and looked at the clock. I picked up my Siddur and looked slowly through a few of the prayers, the ancient words I knew so well that they were engraved on my heart next to ‘James’ and ‘Sirius’. I looked back at the article and two words caught my eye: quick fix.

I put the Siddur down. There’s no such thing as a quick fix for joy. 

**Joy.**

Hey there. This chapter is the secret chapter, the one that I wrote months before I wrote Blood or Kisses, which has been waiting in a file all that time, every now and again being edited to fit with my version of events. It’s been written and rewritten about six times now, so I’m hoping it’s of some worth.

Please review!

Much love, Angelxx 


	18. Combination

**Combination.**

It was the difference between James and I. I remember the little things, the stolen moments and the grateful smiles. I remember random conversations. Exams, feasts, parties: so-called special occasions pass me by. Not James. James measured things against Quidditch matches, pranks, celebrations. I measure them against the time Jess and I debated whether or not Yvonne from Hufflepuff had ever been a man, or the time Jess, Phoebe and I found a bottle of Muggle washing up liquid and made bubbles all day long.

Little things make so much more of a difference. Sure, a grand feast can seem like a big deal, but you can’t base a relationship on grand feasts and thrilling occasions. I never think of those kinds of things, they can so easily be overlooked. I don’t clearly recall my first day at Hogwarts, but I recall that sinking feeling when Professor McGonagall turned to me and said coldly, ‘And you, Miss Evans, are you too good to take notes?’ and that realization that everyone else was doing so. I don’t remember buying the house in Godric’s Hollow, but I remember looking round the bedroom and discovering that behind the headboard the wall was looking a little ‘damaged’. I remember laughing and thinking at that moment that _I have to live in this house._

Life isn’t made up of balls and matches. It’s an amazing combination of things you love and things you hate and it’s those exaggerations that make life so interesting.

Because it is, it is interesting. And I guess, I guess that much I know for sure.

**Combination.**

I wore black to my wedding. A longish black dress and a small black hat with a black net veil. My lips were raspberry pink and my eyes were bare. I didn’t trust myself not to cry.

You see, my wedding was a combination. Of joy and grief. Of beginnings and ends. Of new and old. Of here and gone. Of life and death. On that day I married James Potter and my friends from the Order toasted our happiness. And on that day the same people returned to pay their respects to Frederick Shacklebolt, father of Kingsley, as his body returned to the dust. We tried to mix together two occasions that didn’t blend and never would. And we were left at the end with a hundred tears and a small collection of guests who weren’t sure whether it was ruder to laugh or cry.

We have just two pictures of my wedding. One is a picture just before the ceremony – it’s James, Sirius and I. We put it in the album, we all look happy and that’s the only thing that we all want to remember.

The other I kept in my jewelry box, no one knows about it. It’s James and I, between wedding and funeral, standing solemnly together. We are all in black apart from James’ white collar and a single white rose that I held in my hand. A white rose – purity, innocence, secrecy, friendship, reverence, humility. I wrote those on a scrap piece of paper and hid it in my pocket. At the wake, which became our wedding reception, I simply took it out and gave my speech.

_‘I hold in my hand a white rose, the colour with the most symbolic meanings combined. And on this sad, happy, warm, cold day I’d like to tell you about them._

_A white rose means purity. My love for James is pure, as was the goodness and kindness of Frederick. A white rose means innocence. Although I am yet innocent, I hope that through my marriage I can shed this innocence and go on to be as strong and worthy as Frederick was. A white rose means secrecy, a word now synonymous with my cause, Frederick’s cause and the cause of every person here. A white rose means friendship and we all know that within the Order of the Phoenix, this is the lifeblood of our survival. Frederick’s friendship sustained many of us – he saved many lives in his time. His friendship and loyalty never faltered. A white rose means reverence. And I think you would agree that this day has been nothing if not reverent._

_A white rose means humility and I can only tell you how humbling it is to be here among such incredible wizards, who have taught me so much, and how humbling it feels that my marriage is to represent the continuation of Frederick’s legacy._

_I ask you to charge your glasses to Frederick. He lives on in us.’_

**Combination.**

I vaguely recollect that at some point in my pre-Hogwarts childhood I had to learn science. Not Science like Petunia learnt at High School, but science with an irreversibly lowercase s. We learnt about the planets, we were taught about plants; we vaguely sat in on lessons about animals. In fact, I paid so little attention in science lessons that there is only one scientific fact I can remember. 

_A compound is two or more elements chemically bonded._

My main issue in my Year Six science exam was that I hadn’t the faintest idea what an element was, or what chemical bonding meant. Needless to say, I barely scraped a pass. 

I always believed I had failed, until I found my Year Six report in a file at home. I read through it with interest; my reports had never been for public viewing. A few phrases jumped out at me, making me laugh – or cry.

_Lily is a lovely girl who tries very hard at her French. Although she needs to work on her accent, grammar and vocabulary, it is clear that she works hard in all that she does. Her grade was somewhat low, but this is in no way related to effort._

_Lily is a bright girl who works well in class. However, she needs to learn to keep her voice down and can sometimes be a little overbearing._

_Lily has been a pleasure to teach and her curiosity is insatiable. She grasped all the techniques that we learnt this term with ease and I’m sure she will find Secondary School mathematics simple._

I looked at this combination of comments, depicting a girl who I hardly know and wish I could be. I almost laughed at the reference to Secondary School – each and every one of these teachers thought I was just another eleven-year-old, off to High School and, maybe, University. And I thought back to chemical bonding and how I thought I knew it all and really I knew nothing and the irony was so beautiful I placed it delicately in my memory.

**Combination.**

There’s a road leading from my childhood home out towards my childhood friend Indira’s home. My mother didn’t like me spending time with her; she disapproved of foreigners. In fact, she disapproved of anyone who wasn’t white, British and had a bad attitude to foreigners. In short, anyone who wasn’t my mother.

There’s a road leading away from my childhood home, and it’s lined with railway sleepers. Those elongated wooden blocks that seem to serve no purpose apart from as a diversion for young children who like to practice their balance beam technique. It always took me twice as long to get to Indira’s as it should, because every time I walked the entire way pigeon-toed along the railway sleepers.

The first summer I returned from Hogwarts I woke early one morning and took it into my head to walk down that road. I had no wish to see Indira, but the memories would be comforting to relive. 

I stepped up onto the sleeper, my balance still near perfect from all the practise. I stepped carefully along, trying to recreate that heady feeling of height and sophistication. But all I felt like was a twelve-year-old who was trying to reconnect with her nine-year-old self and failing, failing oh so miserably.

I could almost hear Petunia’s sneer at my childishness. I could taste bitterness in my mouth. I could see myself, pathetically juvenile. I could feel the warm air swirling around me, an older, wiser breeze than before. I could smell the scent of unwelcome change and loss. My senses tingled with a combination of sensations so strong that I knew, deep down, that this moment in my life was done. Finished, over, ended, complete, concluded, terminated. That was it. I stepped off the railway sleeper and sat down.

I never stepped back up.

**Combination.**

This is dedicated to my cats, without whose insistence, this chapter never would have been finished. Especially Sophie, who is watching me as I write these last few words. And thanks to Laura, for looking this over and pointing out the (many) mistakes. Please review, reviews are just love. Just love.

Much love, Angelxx 


	19. Eyes

**Eyes.**

A handsome face. Messy black hair. A broomstick in one hand and a pair of eyes that could floor me in moments.

His eyes stole my heart.

His eyes terrified me.

Either way, I couldn’t sleep.

The eyes were so comforting. So soft and grey – so warm and comforting, dependable and calm. And yet the spark in the middle told of the boy I knew so well, the exciting, unpredictable boy I loved.

The eyes were so penetrating. So hard and blue – so cold and stabbing, untrustworthy and angry. And yet the face that they sat in told of the boy I knew so well, the loving, tender boy I loved.

Grey.

Blue.

Sirius.

James.

Love.

I loved the boy with the soft grey eyes.

I loved the boy with the hard blue eyes.

I loved that boy because of his eyes.

I loved that boy in spite of his eyes.

Grey.

Blue.

Sirius. 

James.

Love.

**Eyes.**

_Eyes are the windows of the soul._

I’d lived for a long time. Well, a long time from where I was sitting. And I came to the conclusion that this statement is a lie.

I was nine. I was sitting in my bedroom, cross-legged on the floor, staring at myself in the mirror. The day before my mother had been sitting with me, reading to me. I don’t think I was paying much attention – in fact I could only recall one line of the story and I had no clue as to plot or symbolism. The book told me that eyes were the windows of the soul. So I was looking, to try and find out.

I stared at my eyes in the long mirror behind the door. They were green. A bit too big to fit my face, overpowering. They were very oval-shaped; I’d have preferred to have had those slightly pointy-cornered eyes, like Tunia did. My lashes were red, too, but a tawnier red, closer to brown than my hair. As I grew older my hair became more auburn, but as a child it was truly pillar-box red. I could only be pleased that it wasn’t orange, like Arthur Weasley in Seventh Year, with fuzzy ginger hair.

I looked closely into my mirror-eyes. If I moved my head but kept staring at my eyes then my eyeballs moved with me. I looked closer. I could see my own reflection in them, staring back and it was a surreal moment that I don’t think I’ll ever forget.

But I couldn’t see my soul. I couldn’t even see a little bit of my soul. I could see green and a girl staring back at me and tawny lashes, but I couldn’t see my soul. Because green means envy and I wasn’t envious, and that girl was me and surely my soul would look like someone else? And tawny lashes mean warmth and earthiness but I was cold and I was in the middle of London. 

So, with nine-year-old logic, I decided at that moment that eyes are not the windows of the soul.

**Eyes.**

‘God’s watching you. Whatever you do or say, whoever you hurt, God’s watching you.’

I was told this when I was three. Ten years later, at the age of thirteen, I read George Orwell’s 1984.

If God was like Big Brother, then why should I love Him? How can I love Someone with such a cruel eye on everything I do and say? I spent weeks silently pondering it, biting my lip, trying to sort my mind out until eventually I plucked up the courage to ask my mother.

‘If God loves us, why does he spy on us and judge us?’

She reached down and plucked _1984_ from my fingers. ‘You’ve been reading this, have you?’

I nodded dumbly.

‘God isn’t Big Brother.’

‘I know. But they both spy on us.’

‘God watches over us. He protects us. Big Brother doesn’t do that.’

‘What’s the difference?’

She frowned at me. ‘I just told you the difference.’

‘I don’t understand.’

She dropped, rolled her eyes and walked out. I suddenly saw where Tunia got it from.

As she stormed out I stared at the cover of the book, those malicious eyes glinting.

**Eyes.**

Black. Blue. Brown. Grey. Green.

Hard. Stern. Cruel. Harsh. Deceptive.

Interesting. Soft. Warm. Tender. Exciting.

I always wondered why it was that you could only have five colours of eyes. And I marvelled at how each one could have a thousand different meanings.

I only knew four people with green eyes. Myself, Phoebe, Professor Pennington (Theory of Magical Religions) and Bilius Prewett, a friend of the Marauders who had a sister called Molly who left the year after I joined. I found it amazing that they were all so different.

Mine were truly emerald, bright and deep. But they gave nothing away; you couldn’t understand anything from my eyes. They were just green. Plain green and rounded and that was it.

Phoebe’s were a little paler than mine, more of a turquoise. But her eyes were enchanting. They were her tools of seduction, she’d glint them and everyone in the room stared at her. She was glamorous and her bright eyes just added to the effect.

Professor Pennington had dark, forest green eyes. His eyes were sharp, owl-like and stern. They had a glimmer of humour in them, and, although severe, gave the impression of an excess of sarcasm and irony that he didn’t want.

Bilius Prewett’s grey-green eyes were mischievous and daring, even in the most sensible of situations. He always had a trick up his sleeve and probably would’ve been a Marauder had he not been in Ravenclaw. The grey in his eyes sounded sombre and yet they had the most life of all. 

**Eyes.**

It’s very weird having someone look into your eyes for prolonged periods of time. It’s violation and embarrassment and the deepest of love all in one. I’m not quite sure how long we sat there, blue and green staring into one, taking in every single detail. I noticed the tiny scar under his left tear duct. I noticed that the blue of his eyes was identical to the blue of snow when you take off sunglasses. I noticed that James’ eyebrows arched up and then down, giving a disapproving look to everything he saw.

‘I’m mesmerized, you know? I’m mesmerized by your eyes.’

I rolled my mesmerizing eyes. I sighed disparagingly and turned away. ‘I’m sick of people telling me that. Everyone I meet goes on about my _sparkling emerald eyes, highest of all gems_ , or my _vibrant scarlet hair, fiery and vivid._ There’s more to me than red hair and green eyes you know.’ 

James just stared. I guess he had every right to, but it just made me madder. 

‘I’m serious. I’m…I’m a person. I’d be the same person if I were dark haired or blonde, blue eyed or black. I’m…I’m…’ I trailed off as I abruptly ran out of steam.

James stood up. ‘Beautiful. You’re clever and you’re interesting. You’re adventure and daring, you’re poignant and intuitive. You’re amazing and every moment spent with you is a moment that I can look back on and never feel bad about. I can’t waste time with you. You’re memories that will last forever. You’re…mine. And I still can’t believe it.’

I looked at him. ‘Yeah…I guess I am.’

‘I guess…somehow, I always was.’ The moment I said it, I knew it was the truth.

We kissed tenderly with open eyes.

**Eyes.**

Hey. I’m back (again lol). Um this chapter and the next are kind of partners, and are best read together. Hope you enjoy and please _review_!!

Much love, Angelxx

 


	20. Addiction

**Addiction.**

Everyone has their own poison. That fixation that they need, that they want. Some are tangible, some are not. Some are illicit, a secret that is yours and yours alone. Everyone has that moment, that rush that they’ve been waiting for and then suddenly, wonderfully it happens and there’s nothing in the _world_ that’s ever better than that.

Some are obvious, some are not. Jess’ was always clear to me, but never to Phoebe. Jess was addicted to us – addicted to the rush of having friends; a concept that I knew was pretty unfamiliar to her. And as we grew older her addiction grew more focused and more painful. By the age of sixteen, Jess was addicted to me.

I never knew Phoebe’s. I guessed after her death that it must have been power, been influence, been _making a difference_. But I don’t think anyone would ever know.

Sirius’ was secrets. Our relationship thrived on them. It was what we had in common, the teenage thrill of knowing what nobody else did. He’d catch my eye and we’d duck round a corner and kiss and _no-one else knew_ which made it so, so incredible. I was mad, I was teenage, I never thought of the consequences. Consequence was such a grown-up word and I was young, we were so young.

James’ was flying. It was so like him that I almost laughed – straightforward, simple, workaday and yet elegant and daring. He’d skip lessons to soar across the skies on no more than a couple of twigs. He tried so hard to explain that feeling, the exhilaration I could see he felt. But I couldn’t ever quite comprehend, couldn’t ever quite cross the barrier between knowing and understanding – and sometimes it drove us both mad.

I guess mine was poignancy. I saw the world in an over-poetic, dreamy way that no one else did. I quoted and wrote and frowned at everything in an intellectual way that only Sirius ever really understood. But I guess the reason I loved James was that he didn’t. And there was the amazing thought that we lived in two separate worlds and maybe, one day, he could show me his and I could show him mine.

Everyone has their own poison.

**Addiction.**

I guess I became obsessed with hating you. I guess it became the only way I could get through every single day. Every time I saw you behind my eyelids, or heard your voice in my head I concentrated hard until the face wasn’t soft and beautiful, until the voice was harsh and cruel and I hated you, I hated you so much that it brought a smile to my face and a song to my heart.

I thrived on that smile and that song. The obsessive hatred that I harboured for you was so wonderfully addictive that it shot me through each day like a cannonball, racing and racing, straight and true. But like the cannonball, eventually I had to come down. And when I did I stopped hating you and I started to love you. And it hurt. Like a teenager in rehab, I craved the hatred and the cold. The warmth and comfort of loving you was unbearable.

But eventually, like that teenager in rehab, I was cured. I grew a new addiction. I grew addicted to loving you, my friend who I’d lost and I loved and it was amazing.

I guess I became obsessed with loving you.

**Addiction.**

They were always a big tension in our relationship. We sidestepped around the issue as much as possible, I’d go into the garden and James would pointedly go upstairs. But it was a huge barrier. I wanted to talk to him about it, I wanted to show him that it was harmless – that it was just a habit and I wanted him to _understand._ I spent my whole life trying to find someone who could truly understand and when I did I threw it away.

I hated myself for loving them. I hated James for hating them. I hated them for everything they were doing. In my saner moments I realized that it was mad to hate inanimate objects but I did, I hated the sight and I hated the feel and I hated the way I needed them. It was tearing me apart. I was torn between defiance _Yeah, they’re terrible, but I can’t stop so I might as well not try_ and depression _I can’t stop and I wish I could and it’s…it’s all going wrong._ They were taking over my life and I couldn’t stand it.

I spent seven years under a curse that I never thought would be lifted. And yet, when it came, the solution was so simple.

James took my hand, that evening, when I asked him how I was going to do without.

‘Don’t buy them. Don’t smoke them. Just think of her.’ He pointed to my belly.

_Don’t buy them. Don’t smoke them_ _._ Whoever knew it was so simple?

**Addiction.**

What is love, but an addiction?

What is love, but an obsession with that person that runs so deep that you grow to love it?

What is love, but the sensation that the person is always with you, always in the forefront of your mind?

What is love but a desperation to see one person that is so frantic that you call them at two in the morning to say hi, or spend hours doodling their name in hearts?

What is love but a devotion that is so compulsive that it takes you over and leaves you dark-eyed, unsatisfied and sure that the only thing that’s better than this is Heaven, or maybe this is Heaven and the wonder that you just can’t tell but it doesn’t matter because every moment is ecstasy and the world might be tumbling down around you but it’s nothing compared to what’s happening to you at that very moment and it’s so, so amazing and in the end there are no words, just a smile and beating hearts and emotions that flow deep into blood that pumps in unison because the two of you are _living_ as one?

And what is addiction, but that?

What is addiction, but love for something? – obsessive-love! forever-love! crazy-love! all-love! no-love! love-love!

What is love but an addiction to love?

What is addiction but a love for addiction?

Love and addiction and addiction and love and it goes on and on and I love it and I’m addicted to it. 

_Love_ I scream to no one and everyone.

_Addiction_ I whisper to everyone and no one.

**Addiction.**

Yeah, I know, it’s a tad bit short. But it’s a companion chapter to the last one ( **Eyes** ), so I guess I could claim that actually, it’s ultra-long! See? Um…yeah, enough with my _lies._ Reviews are love and I hope you enjoy.

Much love, Angelxx 


	21. Hope

**Hope.**

It was so wonderful hearing good news. In the wartime we were living in it was such a rarity. The papers were filled with worthless deaths, chilling statistics and, written behind the lines, the families torn apart, the hearts torn apart.

But that cold February morning in Third Year, over hurried Hogwarts toast and the Prophet’s newest death toll, I watched Sirius open the letter that his handsome white owl had brought him. I sat a few seats up, mindlessly chattering with Phoebe and Jess, but his expression caught my eye and as he stood up and marched out of the Great Hall, I found myself following him.

He stood in the entry hall, head in his hands, muttering quietly to himself. I couldn’t tell if he was crying or laughing or both. Nervously, I tapped him on the shoulder. 

‘Hey, Black, what’s going on?’ 

He turned in an instant, the broadest smile adorning his face. Without warning, he picked me up and spun me round and round, laughing.

‘Evans! _Evans!_ God, sorry, I know I don’t even know you or anything but, _God!_ _’_ On that word he pushed me against the wall, angry happiness fuelling his hysteria.

‘What?’ I was scared and euphoric, all at once.

‘It’s…it’s Meda.’ Suddenly tears started rolling down his pale cheeks and it occurred to me years later that this was the first time I ever saw his cry. He turned and flopped against the wall next to me, sliding down it to sit on the floor and I hastened to join him as he laughed and sung his words. ‘She’s had a _baby._ ’

‘Meda?’ I was bewildered.

Sirius looked at me and laughed, laughed long and hard, madly and manically. He slowed and took a deep breath. ‘Andromeda. My cousin. Bella’s sister. Narcissa’s as well – you know, in Slytherin? She left last year. And when she did, she ran away from home and…and she _fucked_ the first guy she met and she got pregnant and she just had the kid and she’s called it _Nymphadora._ What a _shit_ name, huh? But I mean…whoa. Look at that – this kid is half-blood, half Black. She’s like…the way forward. It’s amazing.’ He sighed. ‘I’m going to do that, too.’

‘What, have a half-blood kid?’ I frowned.

‘ _All of it._ I’m going to run away, and I’m going to _fuck_ a Muggle girl, and have a baby and I’m going to call it Hope, and if the Muggle girl doesn’t like Hope she can call it Anna, ‘cause Anna goes with Black, you know? And I’m going to be like Meda, I’m going to make a _stand,_ I’m gong to make a _difference._ And when that Muggle girl gives birth I’m going to owl Nymphadora at Hogwarts, ‘cause she’ll be at Hogwarts by then, and tell her and maybe, maybe she’ll do what I just did and I bet, I _bet_ that she’ll be the best aunt that Hope could ever wish for.’

I chewed on this for a while, watching Sirius’ face as he stared off into a world filled with his dreams.

‘I don’t like the name Hope.’ I said finally, lamely.

‘Name it Anna, then.’ Sirius replied absently.

He turned to me, and I caught his eye and we both blushed and giggled and I told him that I was happy for him and he told me _Thanks, Evans, I appreciate it_ and reminded me that I _Mustn’t tell anyone, yeah?_ And we returned to the Great Hall with smiles on our faces.

**Hope.**

Petunia became engaged during the summer term of my sixth year at Hogwarts, at the age of nineteen. It was early, she agreed, but she and Vernon planned a long engagement. I heard little else of it. Although she made plans to move out of our childhood home, in the end it made more sense for Vernon to move in with us. They moved into the room that my mother had once lived in, I never forgave her for that.

When I came home that summer, a tube ride from Kings Cross with an owl, she was waiting for me. I knew something had changed. She beckoned me into the kitchen, averting her eyes from Circe and my trunks. I followed her, the eerie silence scaring me. She sat me down.

‘I’m engaged, Lily. I’m going to get married.’

I studied her face. Defiance, I saw at that moment, certainty, and a fear that made my heart ache. But beneath that, I saw old emotions, that desperation to be accepted that was left over from the skinny dark haired girl who just wanted her mother to love her. I felt a fierce flush of anger towards my mother, wherever she was. But all at once I realized why Petunia was telling me all this.

‘Tunia…’ I began.

She looked at me, the beginnings of tears threatening, a hopeful gleam in her eye.

I battled with myself. It was the moment, that moment that had been threatening since my birth. My relationship with Petunia was either to crumble or to be reborn. The olive branch lay on the table, it was up to the both of us to grab it.

_Tunia, I’m sorry. I’m so happy for you._

But seventeen years of Petunia wreaking revenge on me for my mother’s faults was just a few years too long.

‘You know what, Petunia? I couldn’t care less if you’re getting married. I wish you a _lifetime_ of unhappiness.’ Every word stung my throat and made me feel sick, but they had to be said.

I watched her face nearly crumple, before righting itself. She gave me a piercing look and I knew that that would be the last time I’d see her. 

And even though we lived in the same house for almost two more years, it was, where it mattered.

**Hope.**

Every child has that dream, that secret fantasy that keeps him or her going through the good times and the bad. It might be a handsome prince sweeping one off one’s feet, it might be joining the England football squad, it might be becoming a wizard. Or it might be something closer to home - Petunia’s was her mother’s acceptance.

Mine was my father’s.

Petunia’s father had been my mother’s teenage sweetheart, a dark haired, soft-spoken mechanic called Toby who lived in Devon with his wife and four children. Every other weekend, sometimes more, he’d come up to London to visit her. These visits were a tool of supreme cruelty on Petunia’s part. It was the one thing that she would always beat me at and her taunts penetrated my heart. But when Petunia was fifteen, he and his family upped sticks suddenly to Spain, and the visits stopped abruptly.

I knew little about my father. A redhead, I had been told, green eyes just like yours, I had been told. Scottish, name of Stuart. A one-night stand, that was all, my mother always said. He wasn’t even aware that I existed. _But,_ my mother used to tell me, _I bet on some level he knows. And one day, he’s going to come for you._ With hindsight, I realized that this was a terrible thing to tell a child; it gave me false hope and allowed me to delude myself. But for me, it represented a dream to cling on to and, although I’m sure it was to give me grave psychological damage in the future, that glowing jewel of hope was worth every tear I might’ve shed.

**Hope.**

I never quite understood hope. Stronger than optimism, weaker than faith, it hasn’t yet found its place on the psychological map. In some circumstances, it’s a prayer; in others it’s something to cling to; in others it’s something to avoid. Hope pulls you back and urges you on and it’s different for different people. For me, hope was always a fallback; those deep-seated aspirations were an aid to endeavoring to attempt anything. When doubts crept in, my own hopes and dreams would crush them, like a battle where the blood spilled is pessimism.

I guess my secret dream was always true love, sometime, someday, somehow. I was never the person who claimed that they _Didn’t believe in falling in love_ or that _True love was just a delusion_. After all, I had a working model, a prototype to show them.

My mother’s best friend. A folksy, whippet-thin blonde who was fond of wearing many-layered gypsy dresses, practiced Paganism and claimed to be called _Passiflora,_ which I later discovered was a genus of passion flower. I’d also seen her wallet and knew that she had, in fact, been christened June. She was married to a staid investment consultant who worked long days in the City. Their story was my proof that romance, true love, all those old fashioned ideas, existed.

They had met at a party on a Wednesday evening, twenty years or so back. They’d hardly exchanged more than a few words before he’d had to go, but she gave him her number, and he called her. It transpired that they had both been invited to a social event on the Thursday evening. He invited her to spend Friday with him, and she stayed for Saturday, as well. On Sunday they had lunch with his parents and on Monday they announced the engagement.

And I guess that was my dream; _that_ was what I hoped for.

**Hope.**

‘Lily?’

I unwillingly drifted out of my daydreams. ‘Yeah?’

‘What do you want out of life? What are your hopes for the future?’ he sounded genuinely curious and a little nervous, as if he’d been wondering for a long while before plucking up the courage to ask me.

I pondered. ‘I don’t know. I guess I want to be happy, and I want everyone I love to be happy. And I want to know that what I’m doing is right for me. And I want to be able to look back and not have any regrets. Why, what do you want out of life?’

He hesitated for less than an instant. ‘I want a career that I can be proud of. I want a houseful of children, and I want them all to be happy. I want to defeat Voldemort and bring about peace. I want that perfect, happy Fifties existence, but without the foolish wife. I want to be happy and I want you to be happy. And I want to marry you.’

‘Really?’ I was quite proud of how calm I kept my voice. ‘I’m surprised. I’d never have expected the great James Potter to have such traditional dreams.’

He flushed. ‘Well. You know.’

I smiled. ‘Yeah, I do.’ I paused.

‘Do you want that too, Lil? Do you want to be my wife? Do you want to have my children? Because that’s what I want. I want you by my side down the aisle and in my bed at night and by my side as we murder Death Eaters and then lying at home, complaining that I’m too busy vanquishing Death Eaters to care for you in your pregnancy and then screaming in the hospital and then caring for the children and moaning about how I don’t help enough and yelling _James! I’m juggling being a mother and having a career and all you want to do is spend time with Sirius!_ That’s what I want. I want a lifestyle. With you. So, what I guess I’m trying to say, Lily Evans, is please, please will you marry me?’

I laughed slightly, tears running freely down my cheeks. ‘Yeah, all right.’

‘Good.’ He replied and I laughed again.

**Hope.**

Yeah. Me again. With another obsessively fast update. But you know. Um, I’d actually like a favor (apart from reviewing, but that goes without saying). In your review (which will _obviously_ exist – please?) could you tell me something? It’s just that I’ve suddenly and randomly become very worried about my OCs, mainly Phoebe and Jess. What do you think of them? Are they just another pair of Lily’s Nameless Mary-Sue Best Friends? Please tell me.

Anyhow, hope you enjoy, and review please. =]

Much love, Angelxx 


	22. Music

**Music.**

I was brought up on the Beatles. It was the soundtrack to my childhood. I was born as they began and throughout my formative years it was always in the background. Most memories from my upbringing have a Beatles song playing in the background. They were my mother’s passion; she knew every song and every bit of trivia. She’d waste hundreds on tacky merchandise. But everything had a song. 

Tunia and I knew them too. We could tell our mother’s exact mood by which song was playing when we arrived home from school. Hearing strains of _Maxwell’s Silver Hammer_ was a good indication that we should stay away, while _Paperback Writer_ was often an invitation to join in her celebrations – that song always prompted her inevitable self-assurance that tomorrowshe _was_ going to go and get a real job and _sort my life out_ _._ But if the next day we heard _Can’t Buy Me Love_ we knew to comfort her, hug her and hide the bottle. In a similar way, she never played _Norwegian Wood_ without a backdrop of tears and booze.

Even so, the image of the old record player in the living room and the gentle melodies of the Beatles’ guitars always sooth me somewhat. They represent some of the happiest times of my youth, just curling up on the sofa with my mother and Tunia in the easy chair nearby. It was my mother’s favourite after-dinner activity. She put a record on the player and we’d just sit in silence, listening and sipping hot chocolate and just _being together._ My mother was never very good with children, had never quite gotten the knack of what to do with them, but she did like those moments when we were all together and well behaved and doing that _family_ thing.

Tunia didn’t. She’d never been a Beatles fan, and had always resented my mother’s dictatorial style of parenting. My mother treated us as babysitting charges, children that she had to distract as much as possible. So our days were filled with commands like _Go and find something to do_ or _Now we’re going to watch the television._ There was no democracy, we had no choice. And I knew perfectly well that Tunia would rather be doing anything but spending hours listening to a band that she hated and made her cry. I knew, and my chest did ache for her.

But I still cried the day my mother left and she made a bonfire in the garden comprised entirely of Beatles records.

**Music.**

I was having a really bad day. Like, one of the worst days, not counting the days where it was just so bad that the mundane things are nothing but dots on the horizon. But as average, day-to-day days go, this one was bad. I mean, really bad. So I would say I could be forgiven for being somewhat snappy and stamping, as I found out years later, on a lovesick young man’s heart.

‘Evans, will you go out with me?’

I rolled my eyes. ‘Give it up Potter, it’s a broken record.’

I turned to give him an angry look, and my eyes locked with Black’s. He gave me a quizzical look, unlike the mocking stare I had expected to receive. I swallowed.

‘A broken record, eh?’ Black said. ‘What record?’

I returned his quizzical look. ‘Oh, you know, something old and classical. No one minds listening to it a few times; on the contrary it often makes them feel very educated and worthy. But after a while they’re longing for Led Zeppelin.’

Black glanced at Potter, who was now busily engaged in a heated discussion with Lupin and Pettigrew. ‘I’ve got a couple of Zeppelin records in my dorm. I could play them to you some time, if you’d like.’ I didn’t know if it was just me, or if he really did sound slightly harassed.

‘Sure. I’d like that.’ I smiled and walked away, wondering why I felt like I’d been asked out.

I had _Dazed and Confused_ in my head all day.

**Music.**

There wasn’t a large Scouse wizarding population. In fact, there were only two families that I knew of in Liverpool with any connection to the wizarding world at all. One was Jess’: the Turners were Muggles but were connected to magic by their relations, some of whom were Squibs and also by Jess herself. The other was the Hitchens’, a family of blood-traitors, very distantly related to the Blacks, who’s daughter Cassiopeia was three years below us. With so few wizards around her, Jess claimed that it always took her a week or so to get back into the magical mindset.

Unlike me. I loved being back at Hogwarts; it was like home. But the summer after Third Year, when I spent a week at Jess’, I began to understand why she might not want to leave Merseyside.

At Hogwarts Jess was something of an outsider, quiet, studious, a raucous drunk and one of just three black pupils at Hogwarts she didn’t truly…fit. She had Phoebe and she had me, but she wasn’t exactly popular. Unlike she was in Liverpool. We took a train up from Kings Cross and, when we got off at the other end there were no less than thirteen teenagers, predominately dark-brown in colour, waiting for her. Within moments I could see that this was her element. I trailed behind, owl cage in one hand and all I could do was stare. She was so comfortable, laughing and smiling in a way I rarely saw at Hogwarts. At Hogwarts she was often quite careful in what she said, hanging back, fearful. She’d agree with Phoebe and I. But here, with her gaggle of friends around her, she was relaxed. She was happy. I could honestly say that this Jessica Turner was a different one to the one I knew at school.

But one of them was lying. I could tell. Because this Jess was so different, they couldn’t be the same person. The Jess Turner went out every night, wearing next to nothing and partied the night away. This Jess Turner danced the night away and woke up, hungover, half naked with a guy she hardly knew. This Jess Turner spun off into oblivion to the tune of the Commodores, ABBA or Frankie Valli. 

_Dance music. Disco_ _music._ No mention of The 101'ers, Jess’ favourite band if you asked her in Hogwarts. No mention of The Who, or Queen or Bad Company. No evidence at all that they die-hard rock chick she played at school existed, except a stack of records, hidden at the back of a closet.

And as I stared at them, the bands I knew so well, I tasted the bitterness in my mouth and the word _Liar_ began to meld with the word _Fake_ playing on repeat in my head. And I made a conscious decision that the next year I wouldn’t share my music with anyone but Black. And I smiled and knew that I’d just discovered something about the both of us.

**Music.**

There was a big divide amongst the pureblooded kids, between the ones who were up-to-date with Muggle culture, and those who weren’t. Although the former were much the minority, and the latter were very much the majority. Sirius Black was one of the few, Alexia Intera was another. But in the main, the pureblooded kids knew little about the big, wide, Muggle world and the Muggleborns knew little about their world.

For the most part, we rubbed along just fine in this vein. But sometimes, issues arose. Like when James Potter and I had one of our patented huge rows.

…‘ _The moon?!_ How on earth would Muggles get to the _moon?!’_

‘I have it on video at home! You’re just a fucking _racist!_ ’

Potter snarled. ‘Don’t you call me a racist, Evans…’

‘Why not? You are one.’

‘No I’m not!’

‘Oh yes, you are! You believe that just because they’re _Muggles,_ they can’t do fucking _anything!’…_

But, for the most part, it was fine. It still surprised me, though, how Phoebe hadn’t known that Muggles existed until the age of nine. Or how Rastaban Lestrange still claimed, point-blank, that Muggles had no form of government and truly were barbarians.

But, curiously enough, the thing that really surprised me was the two separate pop cultures. The Griffindor Common Room had two gramophones – a normal, Muggle one and a magical one, which played only magical records and allowed one to ‘tune in’ so those who didn’t want to didn’t have to listen. The hip band of the moment was the Cold Hearted Vampires, a heavy metal group of, ironically enough, witches and banshees. They were all right, I’d tune in once in a while, to them or sometimes the mother and daughter duo – Reglatina and Celestina Warbeck. But it couldn’t compete with Jess and I (and occasionally Sirius Black) air-guitarring to Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix and The Who. The two cultures would never amalgamate; neither of us would ever meet halfway. The purebloods listened to _their_ music and we’d listen to _our_ music and that was just the way it went.

But that didn’t make it better.

**Music.**

James Potter might not appear to be the most romantic person. In fact, his straightforward, simpleton style sometimes left the impression that he was simple-minded and dense. But he wasn’t. Behind an upfront manner and a cheerful mischievousness lived the mind of man, not a boy. And that man was more passionate than one might think.

Take our first anniversary. James must’ve spent hours. He’d Reduced all the furniture in our dining room and Transfigured the floor to wood. And as he led me in, hands over my eyes, my heart pounding, my favourite song in the world, _Step Inside Love_ by Cilla Black started to play. And he took my hand and led me on the temporary dance floor.

He slowed and stopped in the middle of the room and lent down to kiss me. I put a hand over his mouth to stop him and his face fell.‘Thank you.’ I knew that if I didn’t say it then, I never would. ‘And I love you.’The corners of his eyes creased and his kiss warmed my entirety. As we stood in the centre of the room, vaguely swaying, I listened to Cilla, and the words I knew so well.

_You look tired love,_

_Let me turn down the light_

_Come in out of the cold_

_Rest your head on my shoulder_

_And love me tonight._

_I'll always be here_

_if you should need me,_

_Night and day._

_Step inside love and stay._

_Step inside love,_

_Step inside love,_

_I want you to stay._

I closed my eyes and murmured, more to myself than James; _I don’t think I’ve ever been this happy._

**Music.**

Yeah. Me. Again. Hmm… Um, I hope you like this one – please note that all the bands are real and I spent a long _(long)_ time making sure that whichever year Lily was in, the music that is played existed. So, yeah. Please appreciate lol. And review, please! Without reviews I can’t get better. Oh, and I guess I better include a disclaimer that obviously all songs, bands, lyrics whatever here are solely the property of the artist and all their affiliates. But I reckon you knew that anyway.

Anyhoo, please review and thanks to Kali – she is just infinitely amazing. *Waves!*

Much love, Angelxx 


	23. Location

**Location.**

London was my home. I could live all over the world – I loved Hogwarts, I loved my home with James – but London was always my home and Londoners were always my people. They were pacy, they were racy, they were on the ball. They went to work and they raised their children and they rode the Underground and I was never sure if they noticed that they were doing it in the greatest place in England – and consequently the whole world. You can give me countryside, you can give me rolling hills and soft fields, flora and fauna; give me the whole world in the palm of my hand and I’d trade it all in for the sights and sounds of London.

London is such a vibrant city. You can walk through London at two in the morning and feel a city around you that is so _alive._ There is a lifeblood in London that I’ve never found anywhere else. Every person in the city has a purpose; the same pulse runs through each one’s veins as they pound the streets of the City smooth and light up each corner. And it’s infectious. When I was in London I was a different person – I was smarter, I was faster, I was stronger. And I loved London Lily; I wanted to be London Lily forever. 

My childhood home was in southeast London, in the borough of Lewisham, in a filthy, friendly town called Ladywell. We lived in a semi-detached house, one of those stuccoed buildings in London that look like they’ve all come out of the same factory, all cream and black and smiling, laughing contrasts. It wasn’t big. On the contrary, it was a tiny scrap of a house – the three of us compressed like gases. A handful of rooms that never had quite enough space to fit us and the emotional baggage that we carried until the pressure built up so much that it had to explode.

It was demolished two years after I moved out – I sent a letter to Petunia informing her of my move and received a letter just over nineteen months later from the Lewisham council informing me of the demolition. I went along the next day, stared at the rubble of my childhood, stared at the memories, so callously hugged by the wrecking ball. I watched the dust gather on my formative years and smiled. Those days were gone.

I waved my magic wand and disappeared.

**Location.**

Once I ran through cobble streets. Once I watched a sky so blue. Once I heard a thousand voices, speaking in a tongue so lovely it hurt my aching heart. Once I looked out of a window, whose own beauty rivalled the view it showed me. Once I heard the music play, like nothing I’d ever heard before. Once I danced the dance of those people. Once I laughed as loud as they. Once I sat and drank coffee and watched the city live its life. Once I went back in time, to a city caught in history. Once I climbed the tower like a prince, once I stared at the picture of a princess. Once I slept as sound as an angel. Once I woke as soft as a dove. Once I lay in a field alone and allowed the breeze to breathe for me. Once I felt tears streaming down my face and felt everything at once. Once I kissed each star goodnight. Once I waited for the moon to rise. Once I heard the sun as it shone. Once I experienced that wonderful sense of familiarity and discovery.Once I saw the sights from the films, met the people from the books. 

Once I entered the fairy tale. 

Once I went to Paris.

**Location.**

Godric’s Hollow was a small town on the Welsh border. When James and I were looking for a place of our own, it took the word ‘Godric’ to get him to even look at the village. As open-minded a pureblood as James might claim he was, living in amongst Muggles still scared him a little. He dragged me round every free space in Hogsmeade or Rebury or Ottery St Catchpole, all the ‘normal’ wizard haunts, all the _right_ places for wizarding folk to live, and I vetoed each one for a different reason. Eventually, when visiting a friend from school, Martha Gilding, who had set up home in Torfaen, south Wales, I stayed overnight in the quaint little village and I truly fell in love with it.

It was beautiful. Truly, story-book, childhood-memories beautiful. It was very Welsh, although it was in fact in England. Picturesque shops, old-fashioned thatched cottages, a village green with huge horse-chestnut trees that dropped conkers the children were now collecting. I couldn’t take my eyes off it, the colour, the cartoon-like quintessence of it. I’d never believed that places like this really existed.

I saw it in James’ eyes the minute I dragged him there (quite literally, through the timely use of Side-Along Apparition). That spark, that smile in the centre of each pupil: I knew that he loved it as much as I did. I saw his face light up at the green fields, his lip quirk at the charming little cottages. I could read him like a book and that day the words were particularly clear. I spun him some story about Godric Griffindor having lived in the village and we owned the house within a month.

I didn’t tell him it was entirely Muggle-populated until afterwards.

**Location.**

I shifted slightly in my chair, turning the page of my textbook lazily, that bleak feeling that I was going to have to read all this again – none of it was sinking in.

‘Do you love me?’

I laughed slightly, glad of any distraction from NEWT Charms. ‘You ask me that every ten minutes. Yes, James. Yes, I do love you. Why?’

James didn’t answer immediately, but frowned and bit his lip. ‘When?’

‘What?’ I was puzzled.

‘Where?’ He blurted out.

‘ _What?_ ’ I was still confused, and getting agitated by now.

‘When….where… _.how_ did you know you loved me?’

I mused on this. The truth was, in fact, around four months previously when James had been helping me with my Ancient Runes homework and he pushed a bit of hair out of his eye and I suddenly felt it, dancing on a heartbeat, whispered in my ear, those clichéd words – _I love you._ Suddenly I didn’t want to tell James this – it was too personal _, my_ thoughts, _my_ love. I searched my mind and came up with a solution.

‘It was that first time in sixth year. You remember, don’t you? I was sitting in the grounds, crying my eyes out and you came and you dried my tears and I knew right then that I loved you.’ I remembered the occasion blurrily. I don’t remember the conversation, but I remember the feeling of the sun warming the top of my head, I remembered the red strands that got stuck to my wet cheeks, I remembered the strong, calloused fingers wiping the tears away. I remembered the kiss, chaste and nervous. I remembered the kiss.

James smiled warmly – that smile that made him look about ten years and a thousand lives older. ‘Of course I remember. How could I forget, Lil?’

I smiled slightly.

‘I’ve always wondered though…’ My heart began to pump harder. ‘Why were you crying?’

_I was crying over a boy. I was crying because the boy I loved with all my heart had cast me aside. I was crying because he had been my everything and I had stamped on his only dream and I had thrown it all away. I was crying because I was still in love with Sirius Black._

‘A boy. It’s always a boy, isn’t it?’ I replied with an attempt at flippancy.

James half-smiled. ‘Which boy?’

_My boy. My boy who wasn’t supposed to be my boy and now he isn’t my boy. I was crying over my boy. And I was crying because the boy drying my eyes was the boy who loved me and didn’t know about my boy and my boy and I had deceived that boy, even though he loved me and my boy didn’t and I was sorry, I was so sorry._

‘Just a boy.’ I smiled slightly, dimly.

‘Why were you in the grounds? Why not cry in your dormitory?’ He wouldn’t stop asking bloody _questions._

_I was in the grounds because I remembered the afternoons when we’d meet here and fuck and it was so amazing because we were doing it all in secret and if you or anyone else had stumbled across us it would have been terrible and that made it all the more incredible._

‘I just…thought it was the right place to cry.’ Even in my head it sounded lame.

James shrugged. ‘Surely crying is the same wherever you do it?’

_Oh James, how much you have to learn._

**Location.**

Where would you go if you could go anywhere?

I’d go to Spain – the colours and the music and the swirling flamencos always enamoured me. It always seemed like a country filled with life. Spain or maybe Italy. Fragrant countries, beautiful countries, countries steeped in culture and history. Countries that sing the songs of their fathers and dance the dances of their mothers. Countries who are not afraid to be traditional. Countries who are not desperately moving into the twenty-first century, countries who are willing to take their time. Countries that give their people a chance to catch their breath. Countries of laziness and indolence. Countries where each instance is savoured, where each moment lasts a lifetime – countries where it is not a crime to take one’s time. Countries, unique countries, countries to be lived in – countries to be loved.

Where would you go if you could go anywhere?

**Location.**

Hey guys, I’m back!!! *Happiness.* OK, sorry for the break – I was NaNoWriMo-ing, but I finished and now I’m back with Lily again. Oh how I’ve missed her. However I’ve found it surprisingly hard to get back into that Lily mindset and I get the sense that maybe she’s a little OOC now? Review and tell me what you think – please. Oh, and Unknowable Room – thanks for the Spotlight, you make me very joyful! Reviews are love.

Much love, Angelxx 


	24. Rats

**Rats.**

The cat sat on the mat.

The cat sat on the mat and watched the fat rat.

The cat sat on the mat and watched the fat rat playing with other rats.

The cat sat on the mat and watched the fat rat playing with other rats, salivating visibly.

The cat pounced.

The cat pounced on the fat rat.

The cat pounced on the fat rat and bit the fat rat.

The cat pounced on the fat rat and bit the fat rat, gripping it between its teeth.

The cat smiled.

The cat smiled broadly, evilly.

The cat smiled broadly, evilly, licking its lips.

The cat smiled broadly, evilly, licking its lips, a tail hanging out from its lips.

The red haired child watched with a detached interest and a gruesome enjoyment.

**Rats.**

There was a picture in the paper that day of a rat. Just a rat, normal sized and greyish. It was stood stock-still, staring shocked into the lens of the camera. Its eyes were beady, black and liquid, filled with more emotion than a rat should be allowed to have. The rat was scared, excited, pained. This was a rat out of its depth and I had a sudden desire to stroke it, my fingers cruelly disappointed only to touch cool, crumpling paper. My fingers stopped, my heart stopped. A heard a voice behind me – condescending, brutal.

‘Ugh.’ The sound was disgusting in itself, roughly breathed, pure repugnance.

I turned around and looked up. Even when she was only six years old Tunia was still far taller than I and towered threateningly over me throughout our lives.

‘What?’ I was confused. It was years before I learnt that there was no point in questioning Petunia – it only ended in severe words and a dent in confidence.

‘Ugh.’ She repeated simply. She prodded the paper harshly. ‘ _Look_ at it. It’s disgusting.’

I looked at it, forcing myself to look away from its eyes and then, only then did I see what she saw.

‘It has an ear on its back.’ I stated clearly.

She sneered. ‘Duh.’ She returned to her cornflakes.

I looked back to the page, determined to see the grotesque, determined that I would see the rat the way Petunia saw the rat. Because Petunia was older and so wiser and it wasn’t _right_ that I couldn’t see it. But I truly couldn’t – my eyes refused to flick to the wrinkled, fleshy human ear growing out of it rat’s own back, they remained coldly, calculatedly fixated on the eyes of the creature – on the pain, on the suffering within, not without. As I stared into its eyes it stared right back at me and suddenly we were connected and it was terrifying and yet it was the most amazing thing to ever have happened to me. The piece was about the cruelties of animal testing – my four-year-old mind thought it was testing me.

I looked over. Tunia was still watching me – her expression quizzical and open, ready to close into a sneer the moment I said the wrong thing.

‘Yeah…’ I said vaguely. ‘It’s gross.’

She rolled her eyes, like a teacher failing to connect with a particularly stupid student.

**Rats.**

I was sat on my kitchen floor, listening to the radio and watching the slow, relaxed movements of my mother as she cooked pasta for dinner. It was spring – the sky was still firmly on the blue side of dusk at half past six and the breeze was beginning to smell fresh and rainy as it lilted along. The soft classical music, the warmth, the pure purity of the situation. It was a moment that could have happened at any point in history, anywhere in the world, any person can experience that pure contentment and I felt very small and insignificant, but I felt wonderful.

A rat skittered into the kitchen quietly and looked round cautiously. It seemed to frown, fear and wonderment in equal proportions, before its brow cleared and it apparently decided that the coast was clear. It began to head for a breadcrumb by the counter and I smiled, immediately naming it Melchisedec and conceitedly likening myself to the beautiful, intelligent, perfect Sara Crewe.

Gregory came round the corner. Gregory was our family cat - fat, square looking tabby with huge blue eyes and a talent for catching mice. He eyed Melchisedec hungrily.

I stared into Gregory’s huge eyes, a fire building up within me, passion and power mixing; I felt my face grow hot. I felt a strong feeling of other-worldliness. Gregory turned back, leaving Melchisedec to eat his breadcrumb in peace. Shell-shocked, I slowly realized that _I’d_ done that. _Déjà vu,_ I thought suddenly, recognizing the feeling – _unnatural._

That was the second time it happened.

**Rats.**

I remember when the Marauders became Animagi. It took them almost two years - they had disappeared off to the Room of Requirements at least twice a week since third year. They were very secretive about it; in fact it was a joke throughout the house that they actually indulged in a little light bondage up there. 

Sirius did it first, of course. Sirius Black did everything first. I remember the day he accomplished it – how he’d run into the Common Room and caught my eye and, as he knew I would, I appeared on the stairs a few moments later and he took my hand and dragged me wordlessly into the corridor off the Entrance Hall that no one ever went in and Transformed without a word. And I just fell to the floor, hitting my head on the cold flagstones and allowing myself to wallow in being utterly dumbfounded and Sirius Transformed again and cupped my hot-and-cold face in his soft hands and kissed me and laughed and said he loved it when I was overdramatic.

James did it a little over six weeks later. It was inevitable that he was going to be next – partly because he was technically more skilled magically than Peter and partly because if he couldn’t beat Sirius then he had at least to come a comfortable second to him. James and Sirius spent over seven years in competition with one another over everything. They could get quite cruel about it, to the point of sneering and backhanded tricks. I never truly understood how they were such close friends.

Peter did it last – almost a full five months after the others. Sirius and I once callously laughed at his misfortune – a _rat_. A rat. A squirming, slithering rat. But when I heard Sirius approach him and ask him what was ‘up, Whiskers?’ I watched with nothing but pity as his face went a painful shade of claret. He could do something that so few other, more powerful, wizards could do, and yet it still wasn’t enough. Compared to the great James Potter and the great Sirius Black and the great Remus Lupin he was nothing. I wanted to kiss him better, I wanted to give him a hug and make him smile. I even wanted to screw him – just to wipe that cruel smirk of Sirius’ face. Because Sirius just didn’t know how it felt when every moment of every day you’re playing a part and it’s clear to the audience that, truly, you don’t amount to much as an actor.

Becoming Animagus was once described to me as both hardest and greatest talents of all wizardry. My Transfiguration teacher informed me that it took a great deal of skill, hard work and personal dexterity before turning to Phoebe, with all her clumsiness and her huge, uncontrolled hand gestures with a sigh and informed her the she would never become Animagus.

Peter Pettigrew – Marauder, Animagus – failure?

He was always a rat.

**Rats.**

My partner for Care Of Magical Creatures was a tall, oddly awkward personage by the name of Sturgis Podmore with curiously long hair. This hair, so extensive and feminine was so constantly Charmed pink by the Marauders that it’s natural fair colour became quite strawberry blond permanently and, even after the Marauders gave up on him and instead found amusement in turning Severus Snape’s cheeks glittering blue, stayed that way for over three years. 

He was quiet, was Sturgis, didn’t seem to have many friends and yet was never quite alone. He spent many of his days with that Kingsley Shacklebolt and his girlfriend Jinna Tai – one of the few Chinese witches at Hogwarts. A talented Potion brewer, had a knack for Care Of Magical Creatures and always had parchment – I liked him.

He liked rats.

I’d never realised how many kinds of rats there are. In Muggle terms there are black rats and white rats. But for wizards there are rats with wings, rats without legs, rats that breathe fire, rats than can jet ski and sing, rats that can bring you breakfast in bed. Sturgis had seven, all named after ex-Prime Ministers of England; Winston, Benjamin and so one. They danced the tango when ordered and earned him a healthy living as rat psychiatrists, counselling other rats after bereavement or through eating disorders. He’d let them out in the Griffindor Common Room occasionally and we’d squeal and laugh and love him. And Sturgis would have his fifteen minutes of face, before disappearing again.

I think he liked it that way.

**Rats.**

Well, look what the cat dragged in. It’s Angel, clutching chapter 24 of **Whisper In My Ear.** Well, hope you all enjoy it – reviews rule (especially ConCrit!). Love has been sent too all reviewers, first class =]

Much love, Angelxx 


	25. Truth

**Truth.**

It wasn’t cold that night as I ran up the path to the gloomily lit apartment block in West London. It wasn’t cold, it was hot and glistening but with a stony breeze, enduring and hard. Or maybe it was my own breath, burning ice in my throat, blowing behind me, pushing me along. Maybe it was my mind, fierce determination playing tricks on my desperation. At that moment I couldn’t tell hot from cold and ice from fire and determination from desperation but I ran straight up four flights of stairs without a pause.

He stood in the doorway, as crassly disheveled as ever and I almost took it into my head to kiss him. But he just stood there – solid as a rock and that goddamned half-smile on his lips, his eyes full of mock concern and I was fifteen again. He looked at me quizzically.

‘I don’t know why I’m here.’ I admitted awkwardly.

He looked at me, real concern beginning to creep in. ‘Come on in.’

I sat on his musty, old grey sofa and he sat on a hard-backed, wooden chair and he stared at me and I stared back at him and nothing, nothing was going to be all right. He cocked his head and looked at me, a thousand questions glaring at me from his lips.

‘He doesn’t love me.’ I whispered it to the very blood in my veins – it was nothing to do with him. My eyes prickled, my nose twitched, I swallowed. It had been such a huge decision – to come here, to see him, to tell him – and now I couldn’t do it. I never made such a mess of anything as I did of that. I felt his hand on my arm and the feel of his breath on my neck and the sound of his ‘why’ in my ear.

It crackled out of my mouth, like a broken radio, all white noise and static puncturing my lips. And he laughed, his dog laugh, loud and clear – a church bell of disbelief. ‘No’ was all he could say.

‘No, what?’ I swallowed.

‘No. No, he didn’t. No, you’re going crazy. No.’

I frowned. ‘Yes. Yes, he did. He told me.’

He stopped abruptly; I had taken the wind right from his sails. ‘No.’ He whispered it. A prayer.

‘Yes.’ I dissolved into childish whimpers.

‘No.’ His face tensed, he was angry. ‘No. No, it’s not true. James Potter doesn’t cheat on Lily Evans. James Potter doesn’t sleep with Narcissa Black. James loves Lily. That’s how it works. James loves Lily and Lily loves James and it…it all makes sense.’ He turned to me, his face livid. ‘You’re lying!’

I shook my head, burying my face in my hands. I looked up to see his face crumpling. ‘You…you’ve got to be lying. You love James. James loves you. James and Lily. That’s how…how it works.’

‘Once it was Sirius and Lily.’

He sat down with a jolt and grabbed my hand. ‘What?’

‘Well, once you loved me and I loved you. We thought that would be forever. We thought…I thought…and then it wasn’t. It just…it wasn’t.’

He was silent.

‘You don’t love me. James doesn’t love me.’ I blinked back the tears, swallowed down the sobs. ‘maybe that’s the way it’s supposed to be.

‘James loves you.’ I looked at him. ‘James loves you like I loved you. And I know how it feels to love you. It’s hard to stop. It takes more than my cousin. Trust me.’

And I knew it was self centered and arrogant and fishing, but I said it anyway.

‘Why? I’ll tell you why he loves you. He loves you for the same reason that I loved you. Because you’re beautiful and amazing. Because when he’s with you the world isn’t black and white – it isn’t even green and blue and red and yellow – it’s emerald and aquamarine and ruby and gold. Because you see the world in this amazing way, because you dance through this world of yours and he just wants to be a part of it and when he’s kissing you and touching you and loving you he _is,_ he _is_ part of it. Because you’re exciting and every moment he spends with you is an adventure. Because he can’t help but love you. Christ, he only spends every moment of every day talking about you. He loves you because you’re…you’re everything Lily. That’s why he loves you.’

I bit my lip, half smiling. ‘Sounds more like why you love me.’

‘It was.’ He said gravely.

I smiled despite myself and squeezed his hand. Our eyes collided, and I held his eyes, holding him to my heart with nothing more than my line of vision. And I leaned into him and he leaned into me and he was right there and our lips were so close, so close, almost touching and suddenly his hand was between and he stopped me.

‘And why do you love him, Lily?’

I closed my eyes. ‘I don’t know.’ I paused, those grey eyes unstoppable – I whispered. ‘Tell me.’

And Sirius laughed – that bark, that roar. And his eyes glinted and his face twitched and his voice boomed like a mountain as he shouted to the rooftops, his covert, convert words. ’Lily, he’s incredible. He’s everything. Handsome and talented and charming and he loves you.’ I sighed _. I know. All I’ve ever been told is how amazing he is. But that’s not why I love him. Do I love him?_ Sirius read my mind. ‘But that’s not why you love him. You love him because he represents a world you know nothing about and being with him you can take a peek, begin to understand. He loves you and he saves you from waiting and wondering. You love his spontaneity and his energy. You love the way that he says ‘I love you’ in the middle of an argument. You love the way he’s arrogant and headstrong and it gives you something to get mad about. You love the way you can love him and still hate him.’

I felt laughter bubble up inside me, but quelled it. ‘Sounds more like why you love him.’

Sirius frowned. ‘No, I love him because he’s my best friend and he’s always there for me and I trust him and he makes me laugh.’

‘I’ve never understood the pair of you. You’ve so much in common – surely you spent at least your adolescence in horrible competition all the time? How did you stay friends?’

Sirius smiled wryly. ‘It was you, Lily. It was all because of you. Because I felt so guilty for falling in love with you – with Lily, with “James’ girl” – that I let him win. He already won at Quidditch and pranks – I gave him a bit more. I let him have more girls than me and I slipped a few marks at school. And I guess I told myself then that it was all OK, ‘cos I still had Lily – the jewel in the crown. And then it ended and he took her as well.’

I looked at Sirius, sniveling on the sofa – the man I’d once loved. A cruel, callous streak rose up within me and I Apparated home – I had a marriage to save.

**Truth.**

_Truth or dare?_

_Truth._

I always picked truth. Dares tended to be embarrassing and pointless. That being said – truths were generally pretty pointless too. First kisses and crushes, old boyfriends and secret fantasies. The one time I was forced to be honest with my friends – and I couldn’t be. I couldn’t tell them that my first kiss had been in (perish the thought) Fourth Year and had been with Sirius Black. I couldn’t tell them that I had only ever had one boyfriend and I was still with him eighteen months later. I couldn’t tell them I’d been lying to them for more than a year and I was to continue lying to them for at least seven months more. 

I couldn’t, like Phoebe did, creep in late one night and boast about my loss of virginity. I couldn’t, like Jess did, moon over the boy I loved and bore my friends with his name. I couldn’t ask for advice on birthday gifts and whether stockings and suspenders were too Parisian hooker. The relationship was rancid with secrets and lies and it was slowly driving me insane.

_Who’s your **best** friend – me or Jess?_

_Phoebe…you can’t ask me – I won’t answer that!_

_Go on Lil, it’s OK – you can say Phoebe if you want. I won’t mind._

But of course you _will,_ Jess. You will because you spent your life seeking my approval and turned my upside down. I hated myself for allowing you to act like that – for allowing you to supplicate yourself to _me._ But I loved it – loved the power and the exhilaration of being the popular one. And the truth is, when I lamely said that I loved you both equally, I loved the look of pain on your face – I lived for it.

And the truth is – so did you.

**Truth.**

Truth or lies.

Real or fake.

Illumination or illusion.

Knowledge or ignorance.

Enlightened or in the dark.

Where does the line come?

_I love you._ Is it here?

_I loved you._ Is it here?

_You love me._ Is it here?

Where’s the limit? Where is it not just a game? When does the transition occur? When is it boys and girls in the playground – when is it men and women, in love?

When it is a little boy with a magic wand? When is it a psychopathic Dark Wizard?

When it is Lily and James? When is it me and you?

When is it Tom Marvolo Riddle? When is it Lord Voldemort?

Where does the line come?

**Truth.**

‘Petunia Evans, you tell me the truth right now!’

A curve of the lips, a sigh, a shuffle of the feet. A loud, defiant cry. ‘I didn’t do it! She hit her head on the shelf!’

A step, a hand on the chin, forcing the eyes to meet. ‘Emet?’

A gasp. Another from the corner of the room. A repetition. ‘Emet?’

And I knew that it was serious. Emet was the Hebrew for truth – but not just any truth. Deep profound truth – the kind of truth that can tear people apart. When my mother said emet you never lied – you couldn’t. It was a lie against God, a lie against life. Emet was the truth that kept people alive and kept people dead – emet was the truth that made good people good and bad ones bad. Emet was the truth that hurt and killed, the truth that loved and comforted. It was the truth that threw the whole concept of true and false back into perspective. Emet is truth you didn’t even know was true – emet was the truth deep within you, realization. Emet was a slate wiped clean. Emet was everything.

‘Emet.’ My sister repeated. ‘Emet – I didn’t do it.’

I touched my head, where she’d hit it with the encyclopedia and a tear rolled down my cheek. Somehow it felt like everything had been destroyed in that one word.

Emet – the truth that can tear one’s soul.

**Truth.**

Ok, there are only four vignettes here. But the first one was so long; I hope you may forgive me. Lord, chapter 25. I never thought I’d get here; I always assumed I’d write five or six and get bored. But here we are – 5 chapters from the end. Yes, Whisper In My Ear will have an end – it was once going to be 35 chapters but 30 is going to work better. And so I have something to run by you good people. I’ve been thinking for a long time about writing a sequel to Lily – set in the same universe with my fanon, with the same chapter heading, but through either Sirius’ or James’ eyes – I’m not yet sure who, I have some decent ideas for both. Would anyone be interested in reading that? If yes, which one? I’m absolutely not sure about it – I’d love some answers.

So, please review =]

Much love, Angelxx 


	26. Death

**Death.**

In the end, murder broke our souls.

In the end, murder broke us all and left us emotionless shells. Once we had been friends; young and reckless, Griffindor-courageous and arrogant, laughing and joking about how we were going to take over the world. Once we had been young in every meaning of the word – innocent and unspoiled. We used to believe that one’s innocence was lost with one’s virginity – how wrong we were. Once, God – once we were _children._ We had played in the garden and laughed at the clouds and had ‘best friends’ and the world had been pure and simple. There were no ‘sides’, no alliances, no loyalties. We had cared about our birthdays and our schoolbooks, we had worried about arguing with our friends, we dreamed of staying up late and meeting the fairytale people, we laughed – we laughed _all the time._ And we grew up and, with that same laughter in our hearts, we marched off to war with no knowledge of what we were about to face.

I used to wonder how we’d be remembered – how history would portray our struggle, our sacrifice. I thought that they might romanticize it, take out the pain and the bloodshed and leave just a glorious victory or a cruel defeat. They might glorify it and ruin. We’d just go down as the Order of the Phoenix. No one would _know,_ no one would _care_ about what we’d actually done. There were rumours around that we were spies, that we were no more than Aurors, that we were keepers of the peace – no more. It made my blood boil. We were soldiers – it was disgusting, cruel and sickening but it was the _truth._ Somehow we became mixed up with policemen and secret agents but the truth was that we were soldiers, cold and simple. We were given an assignment of a certain glut of Death Eaters and we would charge in there, all wands blazing and we slaughtered them in the masses.

Every member of the Order was taught to master _Avada Kedavra,_ and was told to use it _._ At first it was a shiver, a shudder of power. It was pretty terrible knowing the spell – using it was a thousand times worse.

There’s no way to describe murder. There are no words. Because you stand there and point that bit of wood at a man and you say the magic words and he’s _dead._ And no one’s ever been as dead as he is. And you love him like your child and at that moment he is perfect and pure and you destroy that, you shatter it with a couple of words and a _feeling._ And you die right then and you’re never human again. Because you are…you’re a thief _._ A dirty pickpocket, snatching people’s lives and never giving them back.

_We didn’t know_ _._ That is the only defence I have. We didn’t know what we were doing until we’d done it. My first kill was a Death Eater with hair like the moon and a smile like the night sky. We spent hours, breathless, outside the door of the hideout, feeling like children picking a lock, slowly breaking through the charms on the door before we charged in, seven or eight of us, and they jumped up and they pointed their wands at us and I heard a jumble of Unforgivable Curses and suddenly I was standing in the hallway in front of this _woman_ and she was as terrified as I was, running on nothing more than orders and adrenalin and I had a sudden urge to suggest that we just ran away together and tell _them_ that we’d killed each other and I knew that she’d have said yes because she wasn’t evil, she was just a woman, a woman who had been coerced into doing what she was doing by someone _else_ and I would’ve bet that she had a child like the one inside me and suddenly I found myself pointing the wand and saying the words and feeling the feeling and she froze and she _died_ and no one’s ever died as much as she did.

And, in the end, we were all just shells, the broken souls of murderers.

In the end, murder broke our souls.

**Death.**

I never wanted to believe that she was dead. To believe it was for the terrible dream to come true.

She’d have been such a beautiful corpse, lain out in a coffin, black hair fanned out behind her head like a halo. She’d have had that sweet smile on her face, the one with a glimmer of seduction in her left eye and fear in her right. But the glimmers would be dark now. I couldn’t imagine her without the sun in each of her eyes, I couldn’t imagine her eyes dimmed and dulled by death – it didn’t fit. She was always so glittering, glamorous and lit up like a star. She was more than a star; she was a _comet_ – the shoot of stardust you place in your heart forever. Stars never burn out, stars never die.

I know just what would have killed her – the alcohol and sex would have made short work of her. But somehow, in my heart, I couldn’t quite believe it. When the star burns out one should feel it, feel the aching in the heart as the star is ripped away. But I felt nothing, nothing but a numbness that hurt more than daggers. She always burned so bright, crackled so hot – and now I was so cold, so cold.

_You can’t be dead, Mother. Mother, you just **can’t.**_

**Death.**

I started having the dreams when I was about four. I never told anyone – I was too mortified, too scared to admit. But they lasted over seven years, until I left for Hogwarts and often came back when I returned for the summer. And they tasted of the devil and I knew, I knew that they epitomized the evil within me.

Like a murder mystery series, there were a thousand ways of pulling it off. I’d always admired crime writers – they could think up so many novel ways of murdering someone. Usually it involved crushing or abandoning – there was a repetitive one where the door would be bricked up and the victim left to rot – a gruesome death as ever there was one. Often, after I got the Hogwarts letter, there were burnings at the stake. There were sometimes simple stabbings and strangulations and once in a while there’d be a stake through the heart or a silver bullet.

The most common was the most sinister. I’d creep to the victim, lean across them and breathe my breath of evil – cyanide, carbon monoxide, arsenic; I never knew. And the eyes would snap open and the life would evaporate. On more than one night I awoke, scared and confused, leaning across a sleeping body, my heart pumping, my face a wide, scarecrow smile.

I don’t think I ever truly wanted to kill her. But I’m not quite sure.

**Death.**

‘Wait with me.’ She took my hand in hers – a shaking lump of smooth skin and flesh and bone. I could feel each sinew in that hand, shrivelled and thin. She was literally wasting away and it hurt me. I stroked her palm with my thumb, a jolt of hope every time I felt the pulse in her wrist. 

I bit my lip. ‘I should go. James will be waiting. I’ll come back soon, I promise. Tomorrow.’ As I stood up she tightened her grip on my hand.

_‘Lily.’_ Her voice was rasping, a harsh whisper and it hurt. ‘There…’ She broke off to cough into a pan which magically sucked up the blood and took it away. I rubbed her back; it pained me to see her so weak. She was only my senior by a year – Cursed by a Death Eater and doomed to lifelong suffering. The Healers weren’t even sure what it was – some sort of Eastern magic, they said. The disease it had inflicted her with was something between smallpox and influenza, and it had rendered her almost completely incapacitated. ‘There w-won’t be…a tomorrow.’

I rubbed her back again. ‘Don’t talk like that. The Healers are working their hardest on you: you’ll get through this. You’ll be back in the front line with me soon.’ I attempted a jovial laugh, which came out as more of a sighing sob.

Marlene smiled slightly; a sad smile, a ghost’s smile. ‘You are so young.’ She turned slowly, whispering right into my face, one hand on my cheek, the other still clasping my youthful palm. ‘You are so young’ she repeated. ‘Don’t lose it. I was young and now I am old…so old.’ She coughed again.

I looked at her pinched, gaunt face, pale but with spots on the apples of her cheeks flaming as red as her lips. She was twenty – twenty years of age and yet yes, yes she was old. Because she was going to die and the old die – the young laugh as life rushes past them in a whisper like a train. She was old – so old and yet she was so young. ‘ _You_ are so young.’ I told her, injecting as much love into my voice as possible. ‘You are young, and strong and this…this isn’t the end.’

She blinked and frowned. ‘Yes, Lily. It is the end. I’m going to die. Now. And you’re going to go home and burn that photo you have of you and I at Alice’s wedding and you’re going to cry tonight but you must _never_ cry for me again, and then you’re going to go and defeat _Him_ once and for all and it’s…it’ll all be alright. You’ll live your life happily, with James and your children and I’ll just be a distant memory and Lily – it’s better that way. But Lily?’

‘What?’ My eyes were watering.

‘Do me just one favour – just one.’

I clasped her hand, tears dancing down my cheeks. ‘Anything.’

‘When you hold your wand to Antonin Dolohov’s head and end his sorry little life, think of me. Think of ‘Lene.’

‘I will.’ I swore. ‘I will.’ Her eyes began to close; a smile grew across her face, beginning to set into one eternal expression. I reached down and kissed her forehead, my tears raining on her eyelids. ‘Lene, don’t leave me.’ 

‘Wait with me.’ I begged her as I took her hand in mine – each of my fingers shaking with the pain, the grief of the war and what it had done to Lene – Marlene McKinnon – she was the strongest, most lively person I had known and this war, this had killed her. I stroked her palm with my thumb, a jolt of pain every time I felt no pulse in her wrist. 

**Death.**

_‘Because you KILLED IT. YOU FUCKING WELL KILLED IT.’_

_‘I know! I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m so sorry! Forgive me, God forgive me!’_

‘Lily! Lily, wake up, you were…you were screaming and…’ He tenderly brushed the tears from my face, watching as they began to flow afresh. ‘Hey, what’s going on?’

And I wanted to tell him. I wanted to tell him why I had been able to see Thestrals since Seventh Year and why I had nightmares every night about Sirius’ face when I told him and why I could never, would never name my baby Anna and why however much I loved the baby inside me I still hated it just a tiny bit. And I cupped his face in my hands and I almost did, I almost told him everything – every sordid detail and told him the _truth_ and got it off my conscience. But I couldn’t. Because, secretly, I was still that teenage girl who was doing Sirius Black and would never _ever_ tell anyone. 

I kissed him and told him to go back to sleep. He did.

And I kept hearing those words in my head, over and over, the cruel, heartlessness of the death. And I hated him and I hated the baby and I hated myself for not telling James.

And I rolled over and whispered every word into his sleeping ear. And that, _that_ was the moment.

Yes, I killed her Sirius. But something so perfect came after her.

**Death.**

OK. Chapter 26. Four away from the end. Oh, how I sob. And I apologise right now for the morbidity of this chapter. Next update will be in 2007 – I leave for a holiday in Jordan on Friday and don’t return until January 6th. Yes, I know. I’d rather be writing more Whisper In My Ear. But that’s how it goes. Anyhow – read and review my dears, if you would be so kind. I love you all.

Much love, Angelxx 


	27. Age

**Age.**

He always fitted his age – never looked too old nor too young for himself, never went through that awkward stage some boys go through when they’re all long arms and legs and big hands catching on things. He was always perfectly aged, gained a day each day, a month each month, a year each year. I looked young for a long time, wildly Scottish-looking as only a child can be, and then, all at once, the war dragged me five years into the future.

My memories of him are so perfectly preserved, each with a quote and an image and an emotion: the eleven year old with too much hair and too many friends for whom life was always too easy, the twelve year old, biting his lip as he struggled not to shout at Peter, the thirteen year old, racing through the skies on his broom, his cheeks flushed and unchecked, the fourteen year old, that cheeky smile hiding too much hope as he oh-so-coolly asked for an afternoon in Hogsmeade, the fifteen year old, that smarmy smirk hiding too much disappointment as he oh-so-casually shrugged off my rejection, the sixteen year old, that hand rumpling that hair as he battled with NEWTs, that seventeen year old, reaching over and kissing me like I was made of ice and might melt. 

We went for our first date to the Three Broomsticks in the Summer Term of our sixth year. It was a sparkling day, sunny and full of possibilities and I remember clearly looking over at him as he waited at the bar and knowing, knowing that he was the possibility. _He’ll give you a future, my child,_ I heard myself within my head, and was astonished with myself for thinking of matrimony and offspring on the first date.

He was a perfect gentleman that day, bought me a drink, sat close by me in the corner and asked me if I was alright, which threw me a little until I realized that the last time I’d seen him I’d been red-eyed and maudlin and he made me laugh and as we walked up to the castle he told me softly that _Lily, you are something else_ and he kissed me lightly, the same chaste kiss as in the grounds and I knew that yes, I’d lost a boy, but I’d gained a man and it was high time I fell in love with a man.

We were a good match. I hate to admit it, but I’ve heard it from enough people, we clicked. I’ll never quite understand why. We had nothing in common, have nothing in common, we argue and disagree and contradict one another on every point possible, and yet somehow it’s not a problem. But I guess that’s what I love. We can shout and scream, argue and despair and yet we both know it’s not the end. We both know that I can storm out the front door in a fit of rage and I’ll always turn round at the gate and run into his arms. He’s so comforting, tall and solid, skinny but never scrawny, waiting quietly at the doorway and he’ll kiss me and we need no words. And I hate to admit it but I don’t know if I would ever have dared to run away from _that boy,_ the boy I lost and maybe, just maybe, it was a good thing.

**Age.**

I always wanted to be my sister, and it took Hogwarts and young love and James Potter to teach me otherwise.

Petunia and I were separated by two years, seven months and twelve irrevocable days. When I was three I used to believe that the gap could close, I nagged and begged Tunia into drawing out a calendar, day by day, almost a thousand days, which I could tick off. With patience and perseverance not often demonstrated by such a young person, I diligently kept it up, and, at the age of five, proudly told my sister that I was as old as her. And I’ll never forget her smirk, her rude, brash laugh, the disappointment of this new understanding. It felt like running after a prize which stayed steadily just out of reach, something like the dogs at the track, chasing after that elusive rabbit.

She used to repeat it sometimes, a singsong voice chanting ‘ _Two_ years, _seven_ months, _twelve_ days’ and she’d dance and laugh with glee at my disappointed face, the last laugh was always on me.

The last laugh was always on me.

**Age.**

I sometimes wondered what I’d be like as an old woman. I’d close my eyes and different images would dance through my mind: sprightly and spry, comfortable and cosy, glamorous and glitzy, decrepit and desperate, mad as a hatter and moaning about my glory days, that elusive and inexplicable coffin.

When I worked at it, I could put myself together in pieces, never really creating a real person, like seeing someone from behind or picturing a storybook character. I could see the hair, wispier now and a duller red, more copper than the auburn of my teenage self. I could see the eyes, still as brightly green, shining out of a pinched, lined face. I could see the hips, magnified by years of childbearing. I could see the feet, high heeled dancing slippers, the kind I wore now, as a kind of desperate nostalgia. I could see the bag, a huge Mary-Poppins holdall, to carry those marvelous odd bits and pieces that old people collect, but I’d have it covered in a shimmering, flashy pink, a kind of up-yours to my generation. But these didn’t make up a person, these made up a shadow, a whisper, an exciting echo of what was to come.

I broached the subject one morning to Phoebe and Jess over breakfast. They, almost simultaneously, cocked their heads to the left and frowned, the lines of the future in embryonic form. Phoebe slowly tossed back her head and laughed, a slow, Santa Claus chuckle, rich and golden. She gave us a wicked grin as she painted a picture of herself old, drunk and prone to having a very good time with seventeen-year-old boys. ‘I’ll go to Italy.’ She told us fiercely. ‘In Italy they are never too old until they die. Maybe not even then.’ And we laughed together and gave Jess a pointed look. She smiled slightly, conjuring an old black woman, bitter about life and with a tendency to complain loudly on the bus about how rowdy it all was and how, she’d tell a frightened looking mother of two, she thought that they should send kids back to the army, where they belonged.

And suddenly the caricatures seemed real and it occurred to me that old people were just young people exaggerated and I might have reached a great philosophical discovery, if I hadn’t had to run because I was late for Potions.

**Age.**

There are some people who are timeless, the people who never seem to age and never need to because they are so centered and certain that they always fit, no matter when, where, how or why. Dumbledore was one, McGonagall another.

_Sirius a third._

He’d have been a knockout in any era, a Victorian cad, a Twenties playboy, a dashing young soldier in the Wars, and he knocked me out in the Seventies. Slew me, bled me dry, cut me and ran, a drive-by shooting of desire. He turned up to our wedding in a very single-guy charcoal suit with a debonair hat and charm at the top level and just for a moment, I was almost swayed. But that was how it was. That moment, of lust and desire and childish want, and then that lifetime of comfort and true love and I’d never have it another way. Well, perhaps in those moments. Perhaps in those moments, because I lost perspective. I knew, I knew perfectly well that there is nothing fun about being on Sirius Black’s arm, nothing enjoyable about being at his dangerously charming beck and call, that it grinds you down. And yet I’d stayed there for two years, blinded by everything he promised, implicitly and explicitly.

Timeless. A blessing and a curse. It keeps you young and it keeps you cruel.

Timeless.

**Age.**

I apologise profusely for both the short length and lateness of this chapter, although I’m quite pleased with it – I feel it has more of a balance, not all AngstAngstAngst, and that this is a Good Thing. But tell me your thoughts. Review please!

OK, about the sequel. I’ve heard you, all of you, and I’ve spent quite a lot of time thinking about it. At first I thought I’d do Sirius, and then I decided to do James, and then Sirius again, but I realised something. Like Lily doesn’t have a story without Sirius, Sirius doesn’t have a story without James and James without Narcissa. All four of them have a story to tell, and I want to tell them. But seriously, tell me your views. Tell me straight if, to be honest, I’m being an arrogant git and, let’s be honest, no one wants to read four stories by you, Angel. I need to hear these things.

Reviews rock and I love you all, more than you could possible imagine.

Much love, Angelxx 


	28. Loss

**Loss.**

I met Phoebe on the train. She was busty and blonde and overbearing and I was skinny and red-haired and nervous and we got on like a house smouldering slightly, a lick of flames here and there. She talked of her Wizarding childhood and gave me the ‘need to know info’ on the purebloods coming into our year and told me what Quidditch was and glowed in rapture as she described this boy we would soon know called ‘James Bottle’ and explained about the four Houses, GriffinDoor and Huffpuff and Slithery and Ravenclaw and scared me with stories of Transfiguration and Potions and Charms and ‘Defence classes’ (some kind of Tai-Kwon-Do?) and I nodded here and there and smiled softly and let her call me a ‘Muggle’ and just basked in the relief that I wouldn’t be altogether alone at being a witch.

I met Jess in Charms around a week into school. She was more fearful, even, than I was of the big wide wizarding world. She laughed softly as we both failed miserably to Charm our dusters and we discovered a shared interest in Muggle music and I told her about how worried I was about trying to do magic and she told me about how scared she was that no one would like her and I told her that _I_ liked her and she told me that she liked me and said she liked my hair and I said I liked her eyes, huge and dark and liquid and we found that we both hated History of Magic already and hardly stopped talking all lesson, landing us both extra homework.

And I cried that night, as James quietly slipped out the back door and buried the body in the garden, behind the old shed that the last owners had left behind. When we’d first moved in he’d knocked on the side of it and it had almost crumbled and he’d frowned – _Dead wood,_ he’d pronounced it. Dead wood indeed.

I watched from the window as he Levitated her into the grave, cold and impersonal. Tears hurtled down my cheeks, as her face flickered in front of my eyes. Somehow it had changed. She had lost her rosy cheeks, her sexy, glittering-green eyes, she had lost her smile. Her face had morphed: hollow cheeks, sunken eyes, a determined frown hiding tears. It was like, for the first time in twenty years, she understood herself and knew that this was _reality._ And Phoebe Dancer didn’t do reality very well. She lived in her world with her fantasies and something inside of me hoped that was where she was now.

She certainly wasn’t with me. 

Jess was beyond help, locked in self-loathing in Argentina.

Once I had friends, the best friends a girl could have. Where were they now?

Self-pity and a war.

**Loss.**

‘Have either of you seen my necklace?’

It was metal and blue, tarnished, a pendant in the shape of a dagger through a heart.

‘Which one?’

‘The blue one.’

‘No.’

It was silver and aqua, battered with wear and love, with a pendant of my memories.

Sirius had given it to me, when I was fifteen and stupid. He had been intensely proud of his choice – _I knew you’d like it, I’m good at buying presents, Moony’s rubbish, you know,_ and I’d obliged, simpering and offering my lips and thanking him profusely and wore it every day and every night, hidden with an Invisibility Charm. Then, one day, I’d taken it off.

I searched. It was gone, it was true. I descended to the Common Room.

‘Ready to go?’

I looked over. James was sat on the sofa, Sirius engrossed in the _Prophet,_ Remus and Peter battling it out in a game of Wizard’s Chess. I caught Sirius’ eye and something bruised within me became taut. ‘Yes, sorry I took so long. I lost something, but it doesn’t matter.’

‘What?’ he asked, just like I knew he would.

‘Just a necklace. But it doesn’t matter. At all.’ And his pained expression gave me a kind of grim happiness. I renewed my resolve to fall in love with James Potter, whatever it took.

‘Well if it doesn’t matter, let’s go – I’m starving.’

‘It doesn’t.’ 

Sirius rose abruptly and walked up to his dorm, legs slightly weakened. And I smiled to myself and hated myself in equal doses.

**Loss.**

_Tunia,_

_This is such a hard letter to write. That sounds clichéd, I know, incredibly so. But it’s the truth. I’ve never had to do something to hard as writing this letter to you. But I do have to, Tunia. Because you are still my sister._

_You are my sister and I love you and, believe it or not, you love me. We share the blood pumping through our veins and that matters to me. We have been separated for too long. Don’t you remember when we were children together? When we used to play hopscotch and eat ice cream from the tub? Remember when we used to play at being damsels in distress and how we used to try and hide Mother’s drink in the hallway cupboard and dread the smacks we were to receive for it? Remember how we used to stop on the way home from school and buy Mars Bars and throw the scrunched up wrappers at the mean birds? Remember how we used to try and stay up all night when we lost teeth and see if there really was a tooth fairy? Remember how we tried to make soup for Mother when she had ‘flu and managed to cover the entire kitchen with tomatoes and leeks? Remember when we’d play together – just you and me – and it was like having the world’s best friend?_

_I’m getting married in three weeks, three weeks this Friday. It would mean everything to me if you were there. I need you there – my sister, my guide, my friend._

_Lily_

I placed it in the envelope, wrote on the address in Surrey and called Circe over. Then, as slow and calm as in a dream, I dropped it in the wastepaper bucket and sent the owl off with a different note, the last and final note in the melody.

_Petunia,_

_I invite you to join me on my wedding day, three weeks on Friday._

_Lily_

She never came. I had lost my sister.

And I don’t want to, but I still wonder what would have happened if I’d sent the first one.

**Loss.**

You were my everything. You were my world, the sights and sounds around me. You’ll never know what you meant to me. You’ll never understand what you did to me when you left. You’ll never realise that I owe you every good feeling and every stab of pain in my life. You’ll never understand that you sewed the fabric of my mind, that you wrote the book of my feelings. You’ll never understand, but without you – I’m nothing.

It was when you left me, that’s when it all started to go wrong. I lost patience with my sister, I lost patience with myself. It felt like the whole world I knew was spinning out of control – things I glared at broke, a book I was bored with was suddenly reduced to ashes, the curls in Petunia’s hair, the same ones she’d spent over four hours creating, drooped with a look from my flashing eyes. And then I got the letter and it all fell into place. But a piece was missing.

You’ll never understand how much I wish I’d never lost you.

**Loss.**

I Levitated the basket of rolls onto the table and, with a flick of my wand, poured out the soup into bowls. I’d always been fond of cookery when I was a child, but sometimes I wasn’t quite sure how I’d managed it without magic.

‘Christ, Mrs Potter, you’re quite the Delia Smith, are you not?’

I rolled my eyes. ‘Why yes, Mr Lupin. Delia Smith armed with a wand. A highly dangerous breed.’

Remus laughed. ‘But seriously, Lil. Top-notch grub.’

‘A grub is a young insect, Oh Remus of the little vocabulary. I highly doubt that James’ Lily would feed his best friends insects.’

I Conjured a beetle onto Sirius’ plate. ‘You have too much faith, Mr Black.’

He Vanished it without a flicker of the eyelid and turned to James. ‘Have you seen Wormtail recently?’

James frowned; I could have mirrored it with my eyes closed. ‘No…he was supposed to come today. And last weekend, when he didn’t turn up to Order meeting. It’s odd.’

‘He’s probably gotten himself lost on the way. It’d be just like Peter to forget where you guys live, or to splinch himself on the way to Order meetings.’ The table burst into raucous, boyish laughter, making me uncomfortable. I didn’t like the thought of these boys laughing at Peter, it send a cold shiver up my spine.

_Soon enough he’ll be lost from you forever,_ I wanted to tell them.

How ironic that because of him, I lost everything.

**Loss.**

OK, so the nice balance has been lost. I’m sorry, I seem to have gone back to much angsting. Gah. Reviews are wonderful and help me improve far more than silence.

Much love, Angelxx 


	29. Beauty

**Beauty.**

‘You’re beautiful.’ I whispered under my breath, the sleeping figurine barely deigning to breathe in response. In the soft orange light of a streetlamp out the window, black hair crackled blue and luminous skin curdled transparent. A witch, she was a witch, a sorceress, an occultist, a siren, an enchantress, a true Circe of the modern day, guiding unsuspecting Odysseus off course and placing him elegantly under her spell. I hated her, I wanted to be her, I didn’t know her at all.

‘You’re beautiful.’ You pleaded it, the young woman you faced blinking and blushing. In the harsh bubblegum-pink sunset she turned quite rouge, as if a candle was held to her cherry hair and berry cheeks. A bitch, she was a bitch, injecting offers into the bloodstream and never delivering, leaving the victim with permanent withdrawal symptoms and tear in each eye. You loved her; you wanted to be with her, you didn’t know her at all.

‘You’re beautiful.’ He stated it, the pretty face smiling knowingly, gearing up. Music she knew was playing and she knew the moves to _this_ dance, she knew what came after those words, knew what they represented. In the would-be romantic glow of the fire, she simpered through heavy lashes and surreptitiously adjusted a mauve bra strap. A whore, she was a whore, a temptress, a scarlet woman, cursing with desire and blessing with satisfaction. He hated her, he wanted her, he didn’t know her at all.

**Beauty.**

Lines, lines were the difference between the sexes. A beautiful woman has soft lines, blurred round the edges, curves, not angles. She has lips and tits and hips, she looks…comforting, and yet that sultry gaze from smouldering eyes has a hint of almost pornographic danger. Women. Femininity. The dazzling point where style meets sincerity, that combination of rough and smooth, of porcelain skin and eyes that shatter like china. That beat, that drum, that crescendo of daring and dancing. The way she moves, the way she speaks, the way she captivates you in one glance, that female snobbery that leaves men drowning. A real woman will spin you out and leave you drained, cold on the floor. A nipped-in waist, startling pointed lips, a soft head of hair, those tiny details of pure feminine essence. If someone could have bottled it, it would have sold for the world.

But men, men are so different. Quite the opposite, with straight lines and angles. There’s nothing more beautiful than a chiselled jawbone, and the perfect silhouette it makes with the strict line of a shoulder. The harsh sharpness, the cold cut, a smartly tailored suit. A man’s shadow should have angles that one could measure and lines like a yardstick. Masculinity is nothing to do with strength or noble lions. It’s the thin line of pressed lips of a man who has been scorned and a shapely hand on one’s waist. It is the straight nose and carved mouth of a profile against a candle. It is an elegant leg, encased in black, with a crease down the back. It is a smooth shave and straight white teeth. It is a lazy walk, like a cat, that leaves a woman weak at the knees. It is the juxtaposition of appreciation and confidence. It is a wink and a smile; it is a twinkle in the eye of a businessman’s face. Each detail, and masculinity is the picture that together they build.

Lines, lines were the difference between the sexes. The lines of a face and a body, the lines of a smile, the lines at the eyes, the lines heard and unsaid, the lines of the play, the lines of the jaw, the lines of paper, the blank canvas, the man and woman in love.

Lines, lines were the difference.

**Beauty.**

Giggling, Phoebe fell into the dorm, shirt unbuttoned and skirt rumpled, such a stereotype it made me feel ill. Her lipstick stained her cheek and her forced smile gleamed and I returned quill to parchment, rolling my eyes. 

The next morning, I watched her apply makeup. It was quite a procedure, taking upwards of a quarter of an hour, and possibly the only task I ever saw her approach with any diligence. There was an order. First came the bottles – to cleanse and tone, then the jars – to moisten and cover up, followed by the powders, to add colour, and the tubes, to add detail. Each item promised to revolutionize one’s thinking, promised to do everything in its power to make you a better person. She turned her translucent skin to a Mediterranean olive and left her English Rose lips harlot-scarlet. I watched her as she wiped away her own ethnicity and caricatured herself.

A soft-featured blonde with a pretty smile.

A sharply contrasted blonde, with cat eyes and lips to sink one’s teeth into.

_Beauty is only skin deep._

****

**Beauty.**

I saw her once more in my life, in a blurry photograph that Dumbledore dropped in on one of his visits. It was the back porch of the Malfoy Manor, taken from afar by Mundungus Fletcher. The main figures that I was supposed to be focusing on was the group of Death Eaters being herded inside by Lucius, but my eyes kept sliding back to the figure visible through the French windows. She held a baby, somewhat bigger than Harry and her calm features were clouded. 

She was always destined to be pale. Pale and regal, scorning the Black black hair, with her severe cream head. And she _was_ beautiful; even I had to admit that. There was something very graceful about her, the way she stepped up to the door to greet her guests, the way she kissed her husband on the cheek, the way she touched the cheek of her child softly. It was almost soothing, as if she alone had not been affected by the war, an island of purity in such a corrupted world. I watched her with her baby endlessly. It seemed to be her savior, perhaps her God. She touched it with trepidation, and yet her face lit up as she watched it. One could tell, simply by the coldness, the lack of tenderness, that what she felt for Lucius was anything but love. But as I watched her with that child…I understood her for the first time in my life. I knew how she felt, that primal kind of love. I looked down at the child I held. Perhaps they would be in the same year at Hogwarts, these two children. These two children, each of different upbringing, each born in the centre of a whirlwind, each on different sides of the same war. Two children, who had nothing in common but that their mothers loved them and their mothers loved James Potter.

As I stroked Harry’s messy hair down, I caught sight of the photograph-Narcissa doing the self-same thing. I smiled slightly, a sudden rush of love for Harry.

I looked up. Dumbledore caught my eye. I smiled and looked back at the photograph.

‘Draco.’ He smiled slightly to me. ‘The Malfoy child is called Draco.’

He always knew. ‘He and Harry are close in age, no?’

‘Very.’ Dumbledore paused slightly and looked down at Harry. ‘Your mother loves you, Harry.’

I stroked his head and replied to Dumbledore, ‘He knows.’

‘I know. A mother’s love is a beautiful thing.’

‘Unlike a war.’

Dumbledore nodded, a bony hand on my son’s cheek, and suddenly looked very old and very wise and very, very sad. ‘Indeed.’

He Disapparated.

**Beauty.**

‘Isn’t it _beautiful?’_

I stared over her shoulder, watching the morning out of the window. The light was bleeding into the world, inching its way, as if cautious, into the sky. There were glittering tendrils of light on the horizon, as if a great jellyfish of light lurked there and was extending it’s tentacles out, ready to make it’s move any moment now. The stars seemed to be moving higher, the ones lower down in the sky had already given up and gone in for the day, the rest were fading fast. The sky was brightening from murky navy through moody jade to mellow cyan and the earth seemed to be getting sharper, as if all the lines of the world were being redrawn in, darker and stronger.

‘Yes.’ I breathed. ‘Beautiful.’

‘And so _comfortable._ Oh, Lily darling, I’m so glad you like it.’

I tore my eyes away from the sunrise and back to my mother, who was lying on her new bed cover. My heart sank. It was _purple._

My mother liked purple. From blushing lilac to regal plum, through every shade of amethyst, my mother liked purple. Her room was a shrine to purple – to royalty and grandeur, to hopeless dreams and dreamless hopes. Each carpet, wall, curtain and item of furniture glowed shining purple – the colour of the Queen. When I grew older, I never allowed purple to grace my own home. Blue, red, even pink – but never purple: the colour of hopes that are never reality – the colour of dreams that are too hard to follow, the colour of sitting in a chair day after day, griping about never doing anything. 

I looked at the glass in her hand. Purple – the colour of wine, of my mother’s poison. I always wondered what the pleasure was in getting incredibly, painfully, blind drunk. I never did so myself, never let myself reach the collapsing and throwing up phase – the thought of emulating my mother made me retch in itself. Jess did though, a lot, she loved being drunk. I asked her why once. Her reply surprised me.

‘Everything starts to shine, everyone is beautiful, every moment is perfect. You’re cool and clever and amazing, you’re popular and for those moments, you love yourself. You can forget everything that’s wrong, you can just escape into this nirvana where everything is about you, everything is right with the world. You can just…escape.’

_Oh, Jess, my darling. What were you escaping from?_

A beautiful sunrise and a beautiful colour and a beautiful world.

A beautiful escape. Watch us run, run from reality into beauty, into everything we’re not.

_What are we escaping from?_

**Beauty.**

It’s almost over *sob*. Hmm…I don’t like this chapter. Or maybe I do. I don’t know. Anyhow, reviews are love, and much love to all of you who have already done so, I love you all more than you can imagine, trust me.

Much love, Angelxx 


	30. Whispers

**Whispers.**

Our hair was mixing, mine thin and almost pink as it richened from strawberry blonde through copper and rose to pillar box red, and later to bright auburn. Hers was black, night skies and sooty owls and eyelashes close together, peeking through. The juxtaposition of the black and the pink, of the thick and the thin, warm and cold, soft and harsh, innocence and experience, young and old, Tunia and I; that union, it hurt in that place inside my heart that I reserved for my sister because there was no one in the _world_ that I loved as much as I loved her.

As we lay on her bed, long cotton nightdresses, every bit the girls in the tower of our dreams, I felt her hand clutch mine. I laced my fingers between hers, interlocking digits, intertwining thoughts, interweaving heartstrings. She turned onto her side, the smile on her face made my heart glow, like a fire in my chest.

I smiled back, my baby smile. I was always a baby, Tunia’s baby, and even when she was hating me and teasing me and pulling my baby hair, I was always _her_ baby. ‘Night, Tunia.’ I whispered.

People always say ‘a smile played across her lips’, but then it really did, slipping in from the corner of the mouth, settling for a moment on the curve of her lower lip, illuminated the sharp points at the top of her mouth, before flickering away to a look of simple mild warmth. ‘Night, Lily.’ She said it in such a throwaway way that I felt a pang in my heart.

‘I love you.’ I heard whispered in my ear as I turned to sleep, and I didn’t glow – I lit up the whole room with my fireworks. When I was young, Tunia was my everything.

‘Well, I guess this is goodbye.’

A thirteen-year-old girl I did not know stood before me. A slight nod.

Tunia did not age well, her slim beauty was shed throughout her adolescence, and even then I could see the beginnings of lines around her face, which would develop into angles that would leave her with something akin to horsiness of look. She didn’t wear a cotton nightdress; she wasn’t a girl in the tower. She didn’t imagine and suppose, pretend and play. She was grown up, lost from fantasies forever – and here was I, small and skinny and eleven, going to play at witches and wizards for the rest of my life.

I watched her, she watched me. And for those last few moments of our childhood, there were no words. No words.

And yet. As I turned to go, I would swear I saw her mouth move, miming those eternal words, that echo of my sister – the sister I had lost. That cold, angelic whisper of ‘I love you.’

And I can’t quite believe that I imagined it.

**Whispers.**

‘Lily.’

His breath was in my ear, his voice swirling round my mind. I looked up with a blank look, and allowed him to steer me away from the crowd. We sat on a stone bench between recently erected tombstones. I found it poignant, on the morn of my wedding, to sit with these people, the share in their glories and loves, to feel their presence.

‘I love you.’

I laughed slightly, nervous for no reason at all. ‘I know. I love you too.’

Suddenly, in one movement, he pulled me to him, until our faces were almost touching. He gripped me with desperation, and he looked very young, very young and very worried. He began to speak fast, with urgency and apprehension.

‘You and me, Lily, it’s going to be you and me against the world. You and me together, facing everything that comes. You and I together, you and I. We’re going to be against it all, feeling the wind slap against our faces and the Curses fly. You and I, together…you and I.’ He paused, breathing heavily. ‘Are you ready?’

I looked at his young face, chiseled and perfect – everything easy for him, and I knew how hard it was all getting. Facing the world with James, he and I, together, he and I. Sirius’ face flickered like a broken streetlamp, unwelcome in my mind, and I squashed it with a determined smile. ‘I’m ready.’

He took my hand and led me back to the others.

‘You may now kiss the bride.’ Dumbledore, who conducted our wedding, smiled at James with a twinkle in his eye, and took a step back.

James stepped into me, a hand on each side of my waist. He bent down, I closed my eyes. 

A whisper, hoarse and breathy, my husband. ‘You and I, together, you and I.’

A kiss.

**Whispers.**

Everything was whispered those days, everything was disguised and secret and incognito. Every request had to be monitored, every alliance had to be thought through. You never knew whom to trust, you never knew who might be eavesdropping on that whispered conversation. You couldn’t trust yourself, you awoke every morning, not quite sure if you or Imperious was controlling you.

‘Peter?’

‘It’s me.’ I could make out his shadowy shape against the dark night, thinner than I remembered, and frowning.

‘What did Sirius bet you would turn into in fifth year?’ This was our standard Marauder safety question.

A sigh. ‘A flea, or a gnat.’ He almost chuckled, wryly. I stood aside and let him in.

‘Tea?’ I offered as we walked into the living room, where James was waiting with Sirius, the dashing pair sitting on the sofa, laughing in a way I never saw them do without the other.

‘No…no.’ He replied weakly. I frowned. He sounded twelve years old again.

I Conjured him one anyone, knowing he wouldn’t drink it. He looked more nervous than I had seen him for a while – the war was obviously lying heavily on his mind. _He needs a girlfriend,_ I found myself thinking. I sat by him on a pair of armchairs.

‘So.’ James leant forwards, whispering richly. ‘Wormtail. We have a proposition for you.’

A tic began to beat a tattoo in Peter’s face. I wished he wouldn’t call him Wormtail. It was so demeaning.

‘We’d like you to be our Secret Keeper, instead of Pads.’

His face lit up, in tune with my heart.

**Whispers.**

_‘Lily, take Harry and go! It’s him! Go! Run! I’ll hold him off…’_

_I ran to Harry’s cot, blood pumping in my head._

_He was there, at the door._

_There was nothing left to do but plead. ‘Not Harry, not Harry, please not Harry!’_

_’Stand aside you silly girl … stand aside now.’ I couldn’t, I wouldn’t, there was no possible chance of my leaving my child._

_’Not Harry, please no, take me, kill me instead!’ I didn’t think, I allowed primal instincts to work for me; desperation to protect Harry at all costs overrode anything rational in my mind. I begged again, in the vain hope that Voldemort may be dissuaded. ‘Not Harry! Please … have mercy … have mercy…‘_

_A flash of green – green eyes. My blood in my ears – red hair. And then…darkness._

The whisper of my mother, a tear in each eye, a drunken inflection, a maternal hope. ’I love you.’

The whisper of Tunia, a secret devotion, an instinct that will never be stopped. ’I love you.’ 

The whisper of Jess, a forbidden secret, words to tear us apart. ‘I love you.

The whisper of Phoebe, a laugh, a giggle, meaningless sentiments concealing the truth. ’I love you.’

The whisper of Sirius, everything I ever wanted to hear, and yet it sounded bittersweet. ’I love you.’

The whisper of James, who died to save me, James, my darling, I’ll see you very soon. ’I love you.

_I love you too._

**Whispers.**

_Whisper in my ear_

_Tell me something I don’t know_

_Tell me how the world turns_

_What makes the sunlight glow_

**Whispers.**

_Fin._

_[Please review, and look out for **Something I Don’t Know** , coming soon.]_


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